Synthesis Of Liquid PSQ Used As Optical Waveguide Materials By Non-hydrolytic Sol-gel Technology

Polymer materials used for optical waveguide have a promising prospect. Contrasted with inorganic material-based optical waveguide, the preparation of polymer-based optical waveguide devices is easy and low cost. Many kinds of materials can be used as the substrates of polymer material, which is helpful to the integration of optic devices. However, high optical loss and poor thermal stability are the disadvantages of polymer-based optical waveguide materials.Easy process and excellent thermal stability are the characteristics of polysiloxane, but long curing time and high optical loss limit the application of polysiloxane. In order to improve the properties of polysiloxane and match it with nanoimprint lithography technology, UV curable liquid polysiloxane was prepared by non-hdyrolytic sol-gel technology.Diphenylsilanediol, phenyltrimethoxysilane and 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane were used as starting precursor to synthesize phenyl-based polysiloxane. Diphenylsilanediol, dodecafluoroheptyl-propyltrimethoxysilane,3-methacryoxypropyltrimethoxysilane were used to synthesize fluorinated polysiloxane. Curing and spin-coating technology of polysiloxane, the effects of reaction time and catalyst to the properties of polysiloxane were studied in details.The results indicate that the refractive indice of phenyl-based polysiloxane and fluorinated polysiloxane are 1.54 and 1.52, respectively. Birefringences are below 0.0005. By increasing thermal curing time, the optical loss at 1550nm of phenyl-based polysiloxane is decreased to 0.36dB·cm-1. After UV and thermal curing, respectively, cured polysiloxane films were obtained. The thermal decomposition temperatures of phenyl-based polysiloxane and fluorinated polysiloxane were higher than 320℃and 250℃in air, respectively.