An experimental study of the fabrication of polycarbonate optical waveguides

A novel polycarbonate (PC) was introduced to apply in the optical waveguide devices. PC has following distinct merits than common polycarbonate: good processability, high thermal stability up to 293 degrees C and high optical transparency. Optical properties of absorption behavior and propagation loss were investigated in slab waveguides, and low propagation losses of 0.335 dB/cm (@1550nm) and 0.197 dB/cm @632.8nm) have been achieved by using prism-coupler. Additionally, straight optical waveguide and MMI coupler of ring resonator were fabricated using ultraviolet (UV) cured resin Norland optical adhesive 61 (NOA61) as under or upper cladding layer and polycarbonate as waveguide core-layer material through conventional methods such as spin coating, photolithography and reactive ion etching (RIE). The process was studied in detail and the experimental results were given.