Direct Writing of Light Guiding Structures

Flexographic and Inkjet Printing of Polymer Optical Waveguides for Fully Integrated Sensor Systems

“…The propagation of light in waveguides is based on refractive index differences between the various material layers. For step-index profiles, the core of a waveguide must have a greater refractive index than the surrounding cladding structure [5]. From this requirement, four different types of possible configurations of printed waveguides result through a combination of core, cladding and substrate (see Figure 3).…”