Polymeric optical waveguide devices exploiting special properties of polymer materials

Optical polymer materials have many unique features that are unavailable in other inorganic optical materials. These include large thermo-optic effect with low thermal conductivity, index tunability by solution blending, structural diversity, freestanding flexibility, and controllable birefringence. Various functional integrated optic devices have been investigated by our group based on the specialties of fluorinated polymer material, which include extremely low crosstalk integrated optics, strain-controlled flexible waveguide tunable lasers, and birefringence-tuned polarization controllers. They have been demonstrated to have good performance, large fabrication tolerance, and high reliability, and they will be important building blocks for extending the application territory of polymeric optical waveguide devices.