Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs

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Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs

Pitwon, R; Smith, C; Wang, K; Graham-Jones, J; Selviah, DR; Halter, M; Worrall, A; (2012) Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs. In: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. (pp. 82640Z-1-82640Z-10). International Society of Optics and Photonics: Bellingham, US. Green open access

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Abstract

In–plane bend loss represents the greatest commercial inhibitor to deploying multimode optical waveguides on densely populated electro-optical printed circuit boards (OPCB) as the minimum bend radii currently possible are too large to be practical in common designs. We present a concept and fabrication method for creating novel polymer optical waveguide structures with reduced bend losses to enable higher density routing on an OPCB. These nested core waveguide structures comprise a core surrounded by a thin shell of cladding, which allows for two–fold modal containment by first a conventional low refractive index contrast (LIC) boundary followed by a secondary high refractive index contrast (HIC) boundary. The purpose of this is to reduce the in-plane bend losses incurred on tightly routed optical channels, while not incurring prohibitive dispersion, sidewall scattering and optical crosstalk penalties. We have designed and fabricated nested core multimode polymer waveguides, evaluated their performance in comparison to conventional step-index waveguides and simulated these structures using the beam propagation method. Preliminary results are presented of our measurements and simulations.

Type:	Proceedings paper
Title:	Polymer optical waveguides with reduced in-plane bend loss for electro-optical PCBs
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI:	10.1117/12.919817
Publisher version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.919817
Language:	English
Additional information:	Copyright 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1333661