A high-performance electro-optic (EO) polymer modulator on a flexible substrate was fabricated using a polymer substrate layer lift-off method. The SU-8 polymer has widely different adhesion properties on Si and gold substrates that makes selective lift-off possible. The flexible EO polymer modulators on a 100-μm polymer substrate layer have a Vπ of 2.6 V and extinction ratio better than 20 dB at 1550 nm. The bending loss of the flexible waveguide was unchanged at bending radii as small as 1.5 mm, and no effect on Vπ was observed for a 5 mm bending radius.

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Material and fabrication advances have brought polymer high speed, low voltage EO modulators close to commercial development. The technology is now being applied to more complex photonic switches and circuits and we will review some of the latest applications of polymers in photonics -We will briefly review the state of. the art for high band-width, low voltage optical modulators for applications in fiber communication systems and in rf photonics. Using an EO polymer, APCICLD, we have demonstrated a waveguide Mach Zehnder modulator operating in .a push-pull mode with low frequency V of 1.2 V at 1300 nm and 1.8 V at 1550 nm. The rf band-width of the 2 cm. device is -15GHz and the bandwidth of the 1 cm device is -35GHz. We will-review the important issue of the ,long-term stability of these devices including both .temperature and photo-stability. .One of the.unique advantages of the polymer materials in photonics is the ability to _fabricate'bd integrate with other polymer materials, other inorganic materials, and with Si integrated electronics. We will review this work with particular emphasis on recent results on integrating EO polymers devices with low loss passive polymer interconnect waveguides. To reduce the insertion loss in large polymer photonic circuits, it will be necessary to use low.loss passive polymers in as much of the circuit as possible. The higher loss EO polymers are then used only'in the portions of the circuits where they are required. We will reviews progress in low loss transitions between different polymers in the same circuit and show results on an integrated modulator. This Mach Zehnder modulator uses the^ EO polymer only in the arms of the interferometer and uses low loss .passive material elsewhere.In addition, polymer modulators have the unique advantage of being flexibhand able to conform to a desired surface. These flexible optical modulators have applications'in.space based optically controlled antenna arrays and demonstrate the robustness of the polymer technology. We will present results on flexible modulators and the measured effects of bending on V, and the extinction ratio.' The allowed bending radius without significant increases in insertion loss or .physical damage will be presented.EO and passive polymers also hold. promise in the field of micro-photonics. . We'will 'present our results on polymer micro-ring resonators integrated with polymer waveguides. Passive micro-resonators with a finesse of 1 4 1~ @ 1300nm and 117 @ l550.nm have been achieved.. Larger'rings with Q's of over 105 @ 1300 nm have been demonstrated. -The thermal tun&g.of the micro-rings has been measured. Electro-optic micro-resonators can be used for low -0-7803-7888-1 /03/$17.00@2003 IEEE 748

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