Tunable Micro-Ring Resonator And Variabe Optical Attenuator Based On Liquid Crystal Cladded Polymer Waveguide

Liquid Crystal has been one of the hottest topi cs since its first di scovery i n1880s due to its unique molecular structures, optical characteristics and response to the external fields. More attention has been attracted since1970s because of the broadened research and application of the Liquid Crystal Display technology. Recently, thanks to the rapid development of the optical communication technology and growth of the needs for opti cal modul ators wi th hi gh qual i ti es, researchers began to focus i n the area of tunable integrated optical devices such as tunable Bragg gratings and tunable micro-ring resonators.With the consideration of larger tunability, higher tuning efficiency, lower power consumption and lower expense for fabrication, we decided to focus our research on the tunable integrated optical devices based on Liquid Crystal-cladded polymer waveguide. With such advantages as higher tuning efficiency, simplicity for fabrication and lower price, these devices are with promising potential both in future research and practical applications.In this paper, the tunable micro-ring resonator and variable opti cal attenuator was studied theoretically and experimentally in detail and good results have been achieved. The tunable micro-ring resonator based on Liquid Crystal dadded polymer waveguide we fabricated is with a tunable range as large as0.73nm for its TE mode with relatively low threshold voltage and operating voltage (3V and10V respectively). The variable optical attenuator based on Liquid Crystal cladded polymer waveguide we fabricated is with an extinction ratio as large as20dB with the threshold voltage of only3V and operating voltage of only7V.