Vertical adiabatic transition between a silica planar waveguide and an electro-optic polymer fabricated with gray-scale lithography

Chang, Daniel H.; Azfar, Talal; Kim, Seong-Ku; Fetterman, Harold R.; Zhang, Cheng; Steier, William H.

doi:10.1364/ol.28.000869

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…20 To overcome the propagating loss limitation of the electro-optic polymer, the passive-to-active transition technique has been proposed. 29 This technique uses the hybrid silica/polymer structure with a vertical adiabatic transition between the silica and electro-optical polymer materials. Another approach is to use low loss polymer material with an adiabatic transition in the same layer.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical signal processor using electro-optic polymer waveguides

et al. 2007

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We have investigated an optical signal processor using electro-optic polymer waveguides at 1.55 µm. As a result of recent polymer development many new optical devices are becoming available such as optical filters, modulators, switches, multiplexers, etc. It would be useful to have a single optical device, which is reconfigurable, to implement all of these optical devices functions. We call such a device an 'Optical Signal Processor', which will play a similar role as digital signal processors in electrical circuits. We have realized such an optical device using optical-delay-line circuits. Since optical-delay-line circuits are based on the multiple interference of coherent light and can be integrated with enough complexity, they have been utilized for purposes of optical processing such as optical filters. However, the guiding waveguides that were used are passive and the only mechanism used to reconfigure their functions has been thermal. This is slow and cannot be used for high speed applications such as optical modulators and optical packet switches. On the other hand, electro-optic polymers have a very high electro-optic coefficient with a good velocity match between the electrical and optical signals which makes them ideal for efficient, high speed, devices. Therefore, we have investigated delay line optical signal processor circuits using the electro-optic polymer waveguides. These structures are complex enough to generate arbitrary functions and fast enough to obtain high data rates. Using these optical signal processors, we have investigated interesting applications including arbitrary waveform generators.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical signal processor using electro-optic polymer waveguides

et al. 2007

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“…With care, scattering losses can be keep to insignificant values although integration of OEO materials into nanoscopic silicon photonic waveguide structures frequently involves dealing with optical losses associated with the roughness of silicon waveguides on the order of 2 dB/cm. Coupling losses can easily be the dominant source of total insertion loss; however, the use of special coupling structures can reduce coupling losses to very acceptable values, e.g., total insertion loss (material, processing, and coupling) values of 6 dB or less [23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory-Guided Design of Organic Electro-Optic Materials and Devices

Dalton

Benight

2011

Polymers

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Integrated (multi-scale) quantum and statistical mechanical theoretical methods have guided the nano-engineering of controlled intermolecular electrostatic interactions for the dramatic improvement of acentric order and thus electro-optic activity of melt-processable organic polymer and dendrimer electro-optic materials. New measurement techniques have permitted quantitative determination of the molecular order parameters, lattice dimensionality, and nanoscale viscoelasticity properties of these new soft matter materials and have facilitated comparison of theoretically-predicted structures and thermodynamic properties with experimentally-defined structures and properties. New processing protocols have permitted further enhancement of material properties and have facilitated the fabrication of complex device structures. The integration of organic electro-optic materials into silicon photonic, plasmonic, and metamaterial device architectures has led to impressive new performance metrics for a variety of technological applications.

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“…To improve optical and thermal stability 10 in all polymer waveguides, alternative hybrid waveguide structures have been proposed using passive polymers 18,19 and silica glass 20 .…”

Section: Introducationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of electro-optic effect and novel waveguide structure in hybrid polymer/sol-gel modulators

et al. 2007

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A thermally stable crosslinkable electro-optic (EO) polymer is successfully contact-poled in a hybrid EO polymer/sol-gel waveguide modulator. The highest EO coefficient is demonstrated when the EO polymer is poled with a low resistivity sol-gel cladding layer. We achieve the highest in-device EO polymer r 33 coefficient of 170pm/V at 1.55µm, which has not been possible with previously reported polymer claddings. A sol-gel waveguide/cladding plays the main role in our hybrid approach not only for poling efficiency, but also for low coupling loss, and stable coupling and waveguiding. The coupled light from the optical fiber propagates through the sol-gel input waveguide and adiabatically vertically transits between the sol-gel core and the EO polymer core. A phase modulator and a Mach-Zehnder modulator with a 2.4cm-long electrode and an inter-electrode distance of 15µm demonstrated a half wave voltages (V π ) of 2.5V and 1.0V at 1.55µm, respectively. We also examine a push-pull poled Mach-Zehnder waveguide modulator. INTRODUCATIONPolymeric electro-optic (EO) modulators have been demonstrated to operate up to 110GHz 1, 2 due to the low dispersion of their dielectric constants, compared to those of inorganic materials. Polymeric EO modulators have been reported using an all polymeric approach that consist of an EO polymer core and a passive polymer cladding to achieve low half wave voltages 3-8 (V π ). Until recently, the highest reported EO coefficients in polymer waveguide modulators were 36pm/V at 1.55µm 6, 7 (near the 30pm/V of commercially available inorganic LiNbO 3 ) and 58pm/V at 1.3µm 4, 5 . The lowest V π at 1550nm for Mach-Zehnder modulator using the push-pull poling technique 3-7 was 1.8V with an electrode length (L) of 20mm and relatively small inter-electrode distance (d) of 7.5µm. Since present generation EO polymers have an absorption peak near 800nm , the V π at the near resonance wavelength of 1.3µm have shown lower values (0.8 V 4, 5 and 1.2 V 7 for L of 30mm and 20mm, respectively) than at 1.55µm.Even though single layer EO polymer films have demonstrated r 33 of 92 pm/V at 1.06µm (near resonance), smaller r 33 values exist at off resonance wavelengths, which resulted in V π of 3.7V at 1550nm with L of 20mm and d of 9.0µm 8 . Previous EO coefficients in all-polymeric approaches have shown low poling efficiencies 9 of ~30% for an EO polymer core sandwiched between low conductivity polymeric-cladding-layers, despite the fact that single EO polymer films have shown high EO coefficients when poled between electrodes without other layers. Moreover, coupling losses, thermal stability and optical stability were reported as critical issues, due to the smaller mode field diameter and its modification deriving from index modification of the EO polymers caused by the EO polymers' thermal and photochemical reactions 10 .On the other hand, the hybrid approach has now demonstrated the highest poling efficiency 16,17 in a waveguide modulator device, following rapidly after the first hybrid EO polymer/sol-gel mod...

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Vertical adiabatic transition between a silica planar waveguide and an electro-optic polymer fabricated with gray-scale lithography

Cited by 17 publications

References 8 publications

Optical signal processor using electro-optic polymer waveguides

Optical signal processor using electro-optic polymer waveguides

Theory-Guided Design of Organic Electro-Optic Materials and Devices

Improvement of electro-optic effect and novel waveguide structure in hybrid polymer/sol-gel modulators

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