Abstract

We fabricate single-mode polymer waveguide structures exhibiting polarization-independent ultra-low loss of 0.04 and $0.05\mathrm{dB}/\mathrm{cm}$ at the 1310 and $1550\mathrm{nm}$ bands, respectively, with a $\mathrm{\Delta }n$ of 1.6%. A porous structure that arises during the fabrication process is studied by considering its implications in the propagation loss based on the Rayleigh–Mie scattering loss mechanism. We demonstrate that the porous structure is to be reduced to the nanoscale (i.e., $<10\mathrm{nm}$) to realize waveguide structures with ultra-low propagation losses based on fabrications and measurements of morphologies with various degrees of porosity. Further, the bending loss and its respective polarization-dependent propagation loss behavior are analyzed to realize compact devices with ultra-low-loss and polarization-independent features, where a $4\mathrm{mm}$ bending radius is found to be adequate for such a performance over the $1550\mathrm{nm}$ band.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

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