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The newly synthesized polymer, bisphenol A-aldehyde resin (BPA-resin) has many unique thermo-optical characteristics. The polymer has high transparency, relatively high refractive index, low birefringence, and large thermo-optics coefficient at the optical telecommunication wavelengths. Also, the single-mode channel waveguides have been fabricated using BPA-resin polymer. The experimental results show, that the polymer waveguide has a low propagation loss of 0.43 and 0.51 dB/cm at a wavelength of 1.31 and 1.55 µm, respectively, for both TE and TM polarizations. The low polarization dependence loss (PDL) of the waveguide was less than 0.1 dB/cm at above wavelengths, which can be applied in thermal-optical tuned devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europium (\Eu^3+)-doped deoxyribonucleic acid-cetyltrimethylammonium (DNA-CTMA) biopolymers have been prepared and characterized optically. Quartz capillary tube encapsulated \Eu^3+-doped biopolymeric waveguides have been fabricated via a simple withdrawal molding technique. Optical amplification at 612-nm wavelength has been demonstrated in these waveguide devices, and the signal enhancements for different lengths of the devices have been measured. A maximum signal enhancement of 24 dB has been obtained for a 15-mm-long device. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Signal amplification at the polymer optical fiber low-loss window of 650 nm is reported in an SU8 rib waveguide coated with Rhodamine-640 doped poly(methyl methacrylate). A signal beam is end-fired into the facet of a 7×100 μm waveguide and amplified by top pumping of the 2-μm-thick cladding region with a pulsed pump source focused into a 9-mm-long stripe. A gain of 14dB and a minimum signal-to-noise ratio of around 2 dB are achieved in a 15-mm-long device with a low threshold pump intensity of 0.25 μJ/mm2, which is an order of magnitude lower than previously reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polymer channel waveguide amplifier arrays were fabricated using ultraviolet direct printing methodology. The effects of different weight percentage (wt. %) combinations of rare-earth ions erbium (Er3+) and ytterbium (Yb3+) on the absorption spectrum, as well as the internal gain, were investigated. With an input signal power of ∼-18 dBm, the highest internal gain obtained is ∼16.5 dB at a wavelength of 1533 nm for a 20 mm long multimode channel waveguide codoped with ∼1 wt. % of Er3+ and ∼10 wt. % of Yb3+ derivatives. The UV direct printing methodology opens a simple platform for the fabrication of dense and compact polymer waveguide laser arrays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polymeric waveguide wavelength filters based on a low-loss negative tone epoxy Novolak resin polymer have been fabricated using electron-beam direct writing. Both the waveguides and the gratings were exposed simultaneously, which effectively eliminate the alignment errors that can be generated during fabrication. A first-order Bragg grating around 1550 nm wavelength was used, and a transmission peak of -27 dB was obtained with a 5 mm long grating length, corresponding to >99% reflection. The 3 dB transmission bandwidth was found to be ∼0.8 nm and the 10 dB bandwidth was ∼1.0 nm. Dependence of the Bragg wavelength on electron-beam dosage and waveguide width was also investigated.© 2001 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]