Polymeric components for telecom and datacom

Polymeric optical waveguide components offer attractive properties for applications in optical telecom and datacom systems. These are high speed for electro-optic modulators, low power dissipation for thermo-optic (digital) switches and low-cost for all active and passive components. We report on active and passive components realized by utilizing polymer-specific attractive techniques such as planarizing spincoating, low-temperature reflowing and direct photodefinition. Examples are multimode photodefined passive polymeric waveguides for optical interconnect applications; photodefined monomode polymeric waveguides loaded with rare-earth doped nanoparticles for planar waveguide amplifiers and with non-linear chromophores for electro-optic modulators. We will show that polymer waveguide technology allows vertical stacking of electro-optic microringresonators with their port waveguides to realize high-speed modulators. By reflowing the reactive-ion-etched microring we could reduce the scattering by wall roughness considerably. Thermo-optic polymeric microringresonators combine the high thermo-optic coefficient and low thermal conductivity of polymers with the small size of the microring. It will be shown that this yields a broad wavelength tuning range at low power dissipation.