Large core polymeric single mode waveguide for passive fiber alignment

To increase the tolerance for passive fiber alignment, a single mode polymer waveguide with a large core structure is demonstrated. The large core waveguide is designed to have a mode profile comparable to that of a thermally expanded core (TEC) fiber, and it can be connected to a high-contrast waveguide through an adiabatic transition taper structure. From a waveguide with a rectangular core of 25 x 25 mu m(2), a single mode propagation is observed when the index contrast is as low as 0.0005. A UV-cured injection molding method is used to fabricate the thick core structure. Due to the large mode size, the insertion loss of the device is below 0.5 dB until the lateral displacement of the TEC fiber is 4.5 mu m. The low insertion loss is important for reproducible passive alignment.