Abstract

Recently there has been renewed interest in moulding and embossing of polymers as potentially cheap methods of mass producing passive waveguide devices.^1,2 Manufacturing components with good optical performance by these methods requires careful control of the fabrication process and the use of materials with optimised properties. Ideally the materials should have low intrinsic optical loss at 1.3 and 1.55 micron, should be refractive index matched to silica, and should provide acceptable thermal stability. Also, they must be processible. We have synthesised deuterated and non-deuterated fluoromethacrylate resins, which satisfy these criteria. They have intrinsic losses of 0.1 dB/cm at 1.3 micron and 0.6 dB/ cm at 1.55 micron whilst their refractive index is 1.45 at both wavelengths. Furthermore, their reflective index can be tuned by changing the amount of fluorine in the resin formulation. We have produced single mode waveguide power splitters using this material by embossing.

© 1994 IEEE