An azobenzene functionalized polymer for laser direct writing waveguide fabrication

A fiber-integrated optical component fabricated via photopolymerization: Mode-selective grating coupler

“…On the other hand, direct-writing method makes possible the fabrication of planar lightwave circuits on thin film polymer layers [10,13].…”

“…Volumetric refractive index modulation and surface modification effects of polymerization need to be taken into account during the design and fabrication of photopolymer optical devices [13]. Photopolymerization achieved through laser direct-writing exhibits a non-local behavior, in that the induced material modification is not limited to the area exposed to the laser beam [14].…”

Characterization and estimation of refractive index profile of laser-written photopolymer optical waveguides

“…Therefore, the profile can be approximated with a Gaussian function in the central region and another one in the tail region. In the direction of the propagation (depth) the profile can also be modeled with a Gaussian function as explained in [6]. In this paper, three different channel waveguides written on the same PVA photopolymer with different exposures are approximated and the Gaussian parameters are estimated.…”

“…Main difficulties in this technique are the requirement of high laser power and difficult precision alignment. Recently, azobenzene dye-functionalized polymer films have been successfully demonstrated for laser directwriting fabrication of stable polymer channel waveguides, using a 5mW CW DPSS laser operating at 532 nm [6].…”

Single-exposure polarization phase-shifting interferometer using an azo-polymer orientation array

“…Azobenzene and its derivatives are excellent photoresponsive materials that can be applied in many domains, including polarization filters, optical data storage, holography, photo-switching of optical elements and lithography [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The applications of azocontaining materials are based on the photoisomerization action of azochromophores [22] and photo-induced orientation is a remarkable property of azobenzene.…”