Heat-induced Multimode Interference Variable Optical Attenuator Based On Novel Organic-inorganic Hybrid Materials

With the development of informatization, single device of optoelectronics can not satisfy people’s requirement. So scientists hold the view that “Using integrated circuit to control the integrated optical circuit”.So we fabricate a Heat-induced multimode interference variable optical attenuator based on novel organic-inorganic hybrid materials. It based on Ohm effect and thermo-optic effect, realize to use integrated circuit to control the integrated optical circuit. It also can control the optical in the waveguide. The using material is compound in our lab.KH(550)and KH(560) glue combinative to be a hybrid material which have an organic network and SiO2 network. The hybrid material with the organic–inorganic network was used as a waveguide layer. The material have a good performance of resistance to corrosion、sensitivity、thermo-optical coefficient.Our device can not only realize to use integrated circuit to control the integrated optical circuit, but also can control the light intensity in the waveguide. When a DC voltage was applied to the both-side heat electrode with two groups of needle-like probes, the optical near-field can be well define in the core. With the power going up, the optical out put going down. When the power applied is 36.2mW, we can achieve –27 dB attenuation. The Sensitivity of our device is also very good. It can be noted that the rise and fall times were 0.86 ms and 1.37 ms, respectively.