Design and fabrication of low-loss polymer waveguide components for on-chip optical interconnection

This paper reports the fabrication and characterization of straight and curved polyimide waveguides for on-chip optical signal distribution in GaAs-based optoelectronic integrated circuits. Polyimide ridge waveguides with propagation losses (at 830 nm) as low as 0.6 dB/cm have been fabricated. S-bends and splitters with low curvature losses and good splitting ratios have also been successfully fabricated and tested. The effects of the material properties and radius of curvature on the optical losses are presented, and the advantages of this polymer technology are discussed.