Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs

Richard Pitwon; Callum Smith; Kai Wang; Jasper Graham-Jones; David R. Selviah; Markus Halter; Alex Worrall

doi:10.1117/12.919817

1 February 2012 Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs

Richard Pitwon, Callum Smith, Kai Wang, Jasper Graham-Jones, David R. Selviah, Markus Halter, Alex Worrall

Proceedings Volume 8264, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XVI; 82640Z (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.919817
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2012, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

In-plane bend loss represents the greatest commercial inhibitor to deploying multimode optical waveguides on densely populated electro-optical printed circuit boards (OPCB) as the minimum bend radii currently possible are too large to be practical in common designs. We present a concept and fabrication method for creating novel polymer optical waveguide structures with reduced bend losses to enable higher density routing on an OPCB. These nested core waveguide structures comprise a core surrounded by a thin shell of cladding, which allows for two-fold modal containment by first a conventional low refractive index contrast (LIC) boundary followed by a secondary high refractive index contrast (HIC) boundary. The purpose of this is to reduce the in-plane bend losses incurred on tightly routed optical channels, while not incurring prohibitive dispersion, sidewall scattering and optical crosstalk penalties. We have designed and fabricated nested core multimode polymer waveguides, evaluated their performance in comparison to conventional step-index waveguides and simulated these structures using the beam propagation method. Preliminary results are presented of our measurements and simulations.

Citation Download Citation

Richard Pitwon, Callum Smith, Kai Wang, Jasper Graham-Jones, David R. Selviah, Markus Halter, and Alex Worrall "Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs", Proc. SPIE 8264, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XVI, 82640Z (1 February 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.919817

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