Objective
Polymer-based photonics materials are now emerging as a revolutionary photonics technology promising advances in performance, reductions in cost and improved ease of manufacture that will outstrip their existing inorganic counterparts in key datacoms and telecoms applications. The goal of this project is to apply an iterative approach to design, synthesis, processing and fabrication of new polymer-based materials, fabrication processes and polymer optical devices in order to develop advanced polymer-based photonic technology platforms. Polymers for single mode waveguide based devices with low loss and long-term temperature stability will be developed. Low loss plastic waveguide technology by imprint and reel- to-reel embossing groove filling methods on silicon or polymer micro-optical benches will be developed. Polymer optical switches based on Mach Zehnder interferometers, micro-ring resonators and photonic crystals will then be implemented along with tuneable arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexers with sub-nm spacing at 1.55 mm.
Objectives:
Development of polymers for single mode waveguide based devices with low loss figures and a long term temperature stability for imprint embossing and reel-to-reel embossing;
Development of large area preform technology with mirror finish quality channels;
Development of a large area low loss plastic waveguide technology by optimised imprint and reel-to-reel embossing on silicon or polymer micro-optical benches;
Development and realisation of low loss and low cost optical fibre interconnection methods;
Development of low cost packaging including temperature control;
Development of polymer 2x2 Mach Zehnder optical switches;
Development of polymer micro-ring resonators operating as WDM channel dropping filters;
Investigation of the tuneability of photonic crystals fabricated in thermo-optic polymer materials;
Investigation of 2D PBGs in a polymer structure and exploration of their use in building high-finesse 2D microcavities;
Development of arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexers with sub-nm spacing at 1.55 mm.
Work description:
In order to realise the benefits of polymers for photonic integrated circuits, it is necessary to design devices that utilise the advantages of polymers, to make improvements to polymer device manufacturing methods that will enhance device performance at telecoms wavelengths and to utilise cost effective methods of fibre interconnection and product packaging. Initial polymer development will be a target material system for single mode waveguides with loss figures of 0.2 dB/cm at 1300 nm and 0.5 dB/cm at 1550 nm with a long-term temperature stability of 125 °C. To demonstrate the usability of these new materials, they will be processed into working optical waveguides, splitters and combiners on both silicon and polymer micro-optical benches using imprint embossing and reel-to-reel embossing technologies developed within this project.
Subsequently, novel materials and embossing fabrication processes will be developed for the implementation of polymer optical switches of three types: Mach Zehnder, Ring Resonator and Photonic Crystal. The polymer Mach Zehnder switch will be used to benchmark the performance of the latter two types of switch. Polymer micro-ring resonators operating as wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical signal channel dropping filters in an all-polymer planar lightwave circuit will then be developed. Then, we will investigate the possibilities to exploit ultra-refractive properties of 1D and 2D periodic polymer structures in the design and fabrication of photonic devices.
The efforts will be concentrated in two main directions:
(i) to investigate tuneability of ultra-refractive properties of PCs fabricated in thermo-optic polymer materials;
(ii) to investigate the use of quasi-crystalline topologies of the lattice to obtain 2D PBG in a polymer structure and to explore their use in building high-finesse 2D microcavities.
Finally, these novel materials and embossing methods will be applied to the fabrication of tuneable and polarization- insensitive arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexers with sub-nm spacing operating at 1.55 mm.
Milestones:
Development and successful implementation of an iterative approach to the design, fabrication, characterisation and optimisation of novel advanced polymer planar lightwave technologies for the implementation of key polymer photonic integrated circuit components. These advanced photonic technology platforms based on polymer materials will be developed to exhibit comparable performance, be of lower cost and be simpler to manufacture than their existing inorganic counterparts currently employed in data communications and telecommunications applications.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences mathematics pure mathematics topology
- natural sciences chemical sciences polymer sciences
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering information engineering telecommunications
- natural sciences physical sciences optics fibre optics
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Coordinator
CORK
Ireland
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