Polymer waveguides self-organized by two-photon photochemistry for self-aligned optical couplings with wide misalignment tolerances

Self-organized optical waveguides formed in a photopolymer using two-photon photochemistry is proposed for self-aligned optical couplings involving nano-scale optical devices with wide tolerances in lateral misalignments. Simulations based on the finite-difference time-domain method revealed that on introducing a 400-nm write beam and a 780-nm write beam into the two-photon photopolymer respectively from two 600-nm-wide waveguides facing each other with 32 μm gap a self-aligned coupling waveguide called a two-photon self-organized lightwave network (SOLNET) is formed between the two waveguides. The lateral misalignment tolerance was found to be 3000 nm, which is five times larger than the misalignment limit of ~600 nm in waveguides formed by conventional one-photon photochemistry. Preliminary experiments demonstrated that the two-photon SOLNETs are formed between multimode optical fibers by introducing a 448-nm write beam and a 780-nm (or 856-nm) write beam from the fibers into a photosensitive organic/inorganic hybrid material, SUNCONNECT®, with doped camphorquinone (or biacetyl).