Design and fabrication of all-polymer thermo-optic variable optical attenuator with low power consumption

Sun, Shiqi; Sun, Yue; Wang, Xibin; Yang, Man; Yi, Yunji; Sun, Xiaoqiang; Wang, Fei; Zhang, Daming

doi:10.1007/s00339-017-1257-y

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Evidently, the fabricated devices still suffer from too high insertion loss to meet practical applications. In comparison with the other low power VOAs [ 39 , 40 , 41 ], the power consumption is a little larger as well. It is mainly due to the thick polymer cladding that extends the distance of thermal diffusion.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Flexible Thermo-Optic Variable Attenuator based on Long-Range Surface Plasmon-Polariton Waveguides

et al. 2018

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A flexible thermo-optic variable attenuator based on long-range surface plasmon-polariton (LRSPP) waveguide for microwave photonic application was investigated. Low-loss polymer materials and high-quality silver strip were served as cladding layers and core layer of the LRSPP waveguide, respectively. By using finite element method (FEM), the thermal distribution and the optical field distribution have been carefully optimized. The fabricated device was characterized by end-fire excitation with a 1550 nm laser. The transmission performance of high-speed data and microwave modulated optical signal was measured while using a broadband microwave photonics link. The results indicated that the propagation loss of the LRSPP waveguide was about 1.92 dB/cm. The maximum attenuation of optical signal was about 28 dB at a driving voltage of 4.17 V, and the variable attenuation of microwave signals was obviously observed by applying different driving voltage to the heater. This flexible plasmonic variable attenuator is promising for chip-scale interconnection in high-density photonic integrated circuits and data transmission and amplitude control in microwave photonic systems.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Flexible Thermo-Optic Variable Attenuator based on Long-Range Surface Plasmon-Polariton Waveguides

et al. 2018

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“…The polymer-based digital optical switch [9] shows a large ER of 45 dB, owing to a quartz substrate with grid patterns, which is also meaningful for our device. Moreover, air trench structure will decrease the power consumption shown in [20]. To improve response speed, a polymer/silica hybrid waveguide is introduced in [10].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The power consumption of the VOA array is a challenge to their marriage on a single chip because of the temperature sensitivity of the AWG. Among all kinds of VOAs demonstrated [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], polymer-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC) is an ideal platform to realize large scale integration, due to a large transparent window, low power consumption, and easy fabrication [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. These silicon-based optical devices offer low power consumption and fast speed, but technical issues, such as temperature dependence, polarization dependence, and optical fiber coupling, remain challenges for commercialization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer/Silica Hybrid Waveguide Thermo-Optic VOA Covering O-Band

et al. 2022

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In this paper, a polymer/silica hybrid waveguide thermo-optic variable optical attenuator (VOA), covering the O-band, is demonstrated. The switch is fabricated by simple and low-cost direct ultraviolet (UV) lithography. The multimode interferences (MMIs) used in the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI)-VOA are well optimized to realize low loss and large bandwidth. The VOA shows an extinction ratio (ER) of 18.64 dB at 1310 nm, with a power consumption of 8.72 mW. The attenuation is larger than 6.99 dB over the O-band. The rise and fall time of the VOA are 184 μs and 180 μs, respectively.

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“…Consequently, the most common approach is to leverage the low thermal conductivity of air by etching the air trench at the bottom or side of the heating arm, as shown in Figure 3 . In 2017, Sun Shiqi et al etched air trenches on both sides of the waveguide core [ 44 ]. The power consumption of the thermo-optic VOAs was reduced from 8.71 mW to 2.80 mW.…”

Section: Thermo-optic Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer and Hybrid Optical Devices Manipulated by the Thermo-Optic Effect

Xie,

Chen,

et al. 2023

Polymers

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The thermo-optic effect is a crucial driving mechanism for optical devices. The application of the thermo-optic effect in integrated photonics has received extensive investigation, with continuous progress in the performance and fabrication processes of thermo-optic devices. Due to the high thermo-optic coefficient, polymers have become an excellent candidate for the preparation of high-performance thermo-optic devices. Firstly, this review briefly introduces the principle of the thermo-optic effect and the materials commonly used. In the third section, a brief introduction to the waveguide structure of thermo-optic devices is provided. In addition, three kinds of thermo-optic devices based on polymers, including an optical switch, a variable optical attenuator, and a temperature sensor, are reviewed. In the fourth section, the typical fabrication processes for waveguide devices based on polymers are introduced. Finally, thermo-optic devices play important roles in various applications. Nevertheless, the large-scale integrated applications of polymer-based thermo-optic devices are still worth investigating. Therefore, we propose a future direction for the development of polymers.

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Design and fabrication of all-polymer thermo-optic variable optical attenuator with low power consumption

Cited by 10 publications

References 20 publications

Flexible Thermo-Optic Variable Attenuator based on Long-Range Surface Plasmon-Polariton Waveguides

Flexible Thermo-Optic Variable Attenuator based on Long-Range Surface Plasmon-Polariton Waveguides

Polymer/Silica Hybrid Waveguide Thermo-Optic VOA Covering O-Band

Polymer and Hybrid Optical Devices Manipulated by the Thermo-Optic Effect

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