Electro-optic polymer technologies and devices for applications in photonics

Some novel technologies and photonics devices based on electro-optic (EO) polymers are presented. An attenuated total reflection technique is developed for the fast evaluation of the EO coefficients of poled EO polymer thin films. A simple. algorithm and a durable electrode on the coupling prism makes this technique very suitable for routine sample evaluation.; Low loss optical waveguides are obtained using a smooth oxygen plasma etching. Surface scattering loss at the wavelength of 1.3 {dollar}{bsol}mu{dollar}m is reduced from 0.9 dB/cm to less than 0.1 dB/cm. Active and passive channel waveguides can also be made in the EO polymer thin films by direct laser writing. Power splitters, modulators, and directional coupler switches are demonstrated with this novel technique.; The specifications of EO polymer waveguide devices can be adjusted after the fabrication. This unique fast in situ trimming technique is effective for both polarizations and is very suitable for automation. It has wide tuning range and low excess loss.; A high-speed EO polymer modulator is demonstrated at 94 GHz at 1.3{dollar}{bsol}mu{dollar}m. It is one of the fastest modulators ever made. This device has integrated fin-line transitions that couples directly with microwave sources. It is also the first EO device built on a flexible polymer substrate.; A record low V{dollar}{bsol}sb{lcub}{bsol}pi{rcub}{dollar} of 1.5 V is achieved with 2 cm long waveguide modulators at the wavelength of 1.3 {dollar}{bsol}mu{dollar}m. A novel DC biased operation uses the full potential of EO polymers to reduce the V{dollar}{bsol}sb{lcub}{bsol}pi{rcub}.{dollar} 200{dollar}{bsol}sp{bsol}circ{dollar}C stability test indicates that this scheme also makes EO polymer devices to withstand high processing temperatures.; An integrated vertically tapered mode-size transformer is implemented in polymer waveguide devices for the first time. Polarization insensitive mode expansion and loss reduction of coupling loss is obtained. A simple shadow masked reactive ion etching technique is developed for making the vertical taper. To avoid the complexity of the active alignment and attachment of individual fiber to each waveguide, the passive alignment of fiber arrays with monolithically integrated V-grooves is explored. A coupling loss comparable to that of active alignment is demonstrated.