Submicron structures in dye-doped polymer waveguide materials

Slow light has been demonstrated using numerous techniques and offers the possibility of manufacturing new and improved integrated optical components from miniaturized true optical time delay elements to efficient nonlinear integrated optical components. Dye-doped polymer materials offer an ideal medium to investigate the benefits of slow light propagation. Nonlinear integrated optical devices can be fabricated in dye-doped polymer materials using irreversible photobleaching and the materials are relatively low loss. If improved nonlinear efficiencies can be realized using slow light structures this may offer an alternative route to more efficient nonlinear devices as opposed to the present research efforts toward material synthesis.; A slow light structure that is fabricated in dye-doped polymer materials using the process of irreversible photobleaching is a Moire grating. A Moire grating can be generated by holographically writing a Bragg grating into a dye-doped polymer waveguide and then modulating the amplitude of the index change of the Bragg grating with a second periodic structure with a much larger period.; This work focuses on the models and fabrication techniques necessary to make Moire gratings in dye-doped polymer waveguides. A new photobleaching model is introduced that simplifies the radiative rate equations by modeling the absorption spectrum of dye-doped polymer materials with Gaussian absorption features that are dynamically coupled. This model was demonstrated with two different guest-host systems, DCM/BCB and DCM/PFCB. The model was also expanded to model the change in absorption of the system at the photobleaching wavelength. The model is directly applicable to standard photobleaching setups that don't use other techniques to monitor the absorption spectrum of the film.; Moire gratings are demonstrated for the first time in DH6/APC and PMMA/DR1 channel waveguides. These gratings are holographically written into the waveguides using irreversible photobleaching and in situ annealing of the film. The annealing of the film is an important and unique part of the process that prevents stresses induced in the material from altering the submicron structure of the gratings. Slowing factors of 1.25 to 2.6 are extracted from the reflectance spectrum of the two guides. The results and future work are discussed.