Research On Polymer/Si Arrayed Waveguide Grating Multiplexer

Human society is entering into an information age powered by rapidly evolving technologies in areas of microelectronics, optoelectronics, computing and communications. However, due to the rapid increase of information, continuous requests have been made for the increase of speed, the enlargement of capacity and the decrease of cost of communications, some traditional communication technologies and devices could not fulfill the demands of applications. Therefore, it is imperious demand to enlarge the speed and capacity for the current fiber network. The wavelength division multiplexer(WDM) is efficient method. An arrayed waveguide grating(AWG) multiplexer can offer some basic functions including multiplexing, demultiplexing, optical add/drop multiplexing(OADM) and optical interconnection. Also, it possesses some advantages, such as easy optical integrating, narrow wavelength spacing, much more signal channels and low crosstalk. However, the current commercial AWG is quite expensive owing to the fact that the preparation of the materials and the fabrication of the devices are rather difficult. Recently, considerable attention and great efforts have been focused on the development of polymer AWG, because of their excellent particular features, such as easy fabrication, low propagation loss, small birefringence, and easy control of the refractive index. At present, many developed countries have put abundant researchers and money into the study of these devices, and have made great progress. This paper is engaged in the study of the polymer AWG. The characteristics, the principles and the fabrications of the devices were discussed. The main contents are following: The research history and current situation about polymer AWG were reviewed. The advantages of organic AWG over inorganic AWG were pointed out. All kinds of applications of the organic AWG in the field of optoelectronics were discussed. The characteristics analysis was performed for a polymer AWG multiplexer around the central wavelength of 1.55 (m with the wavelength spacing of 1.6 nm. Investigations and discussions are carried out for the effects of some important parameters. The AWG mask was designed finally.The material characteristic of polymer AWG were analyzed. A new fluorinate polymer was synthesized and charactered.The fabrication technology of polymer AWG was investigated. The fabrication technology by use thick photoresist and aluminum film as mask in O2 reactive ion etching (RIE) process were investigated. The results show that the aluminum film as mask in RIE is able to easily fabricate waveguide that satisfy the requests of design.5. The photolithography mask of AWG has been designed finally. And the polymer waveguide of AWG has been fabricated by utilizing both the thick photoresist and aluminum film as mask in RIE. The fabricated polymer AWG was measured by an fiber coupling system.