Metal-cladding directly defined active integrated optical waveguide device based on erbium-containing polymer

Abstract

In this study, a metal-cladding directly defined active waveguide technique is proposed. Optical waveguide amplifiers and thermo-optic (TO) waveguide switches based on erbium-containing polymer are designed and fabricated using this technique. The Er organic complexes containing polymeric reactivity groups are synthesized and investigated by free radical copolymerization. Optical characteristics and thermal stabilities of the active polymer are analyzed. Relative optical gain of the amplifier at 1530 nm is obtained as 3.6 dB. The rise and fall response time of the TO switch applied by 300 Hz square-wave voltage is measured as 511.7 μs and 341.5 μs, respectively. The power-time product is 12.5 mW ms and the extinction ratio is about 20 dB. The technique is very suitable for realizing large-scale optoelectronic integrated circuits.