Abstract

We report an on-chip integrated ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) waveguide structure suitable for telecommunication applications. Single gaps with different widths of 5, 10, and 20 μm inside individual silica waveguides were filled with an FLC mixture. The waveguide devices operate as a binary switch or an attenuator in a temperature range from 30 °C to 60 °C. The FLC mixture exhibited a good alignment quality in these gaps without alignment layers. A good extinction ratio of up to 33.9 dB and a low insertion loss of <4.3 dB at λ = 1550 nm were observed. Switching times of <100 μs were obtained for the low electric fields applied in this experiment.

© 2012 IEEE

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