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Design and fabrication of low-loss nonlinear polymer waveguides with attenuation smaller than 2 dB/cm are reported. Electro-optic devices based on this polymer such as phase modulators and Mach-Zehnder interferometers, have been fabricated and demonstrated. The best figures obtained so far at 1.32 /spl mu/m are V/sub /spl pi//=10 V for the phase modulator inserted between crossed polarizers and V/sub /spl pi//=9 V for the Mach-Zehnder modulator working in TM polarization. The electro-optic polymer is stable at 85/spl deg/C for more than 2000 hours.

Electro-optic polymers provide an interesting alternative to bulk materials such as Lithium Niobate for a range of applications encompassing electro-optic modulators, switches, or directional couplers. The ability of polymers to be spin-coated on semiconductor substrates and their compatibility with such processing techniques as photolithography or reactive ion etching, now classically used in III-V semiconductor-based optoelectronics, provide a relevant technological background towards their integration in optronic circuits.