For realizing high speed and slim data link in a multimedia device, we have developed a compact and highly flexible
optical link module utilizing a polymer optical waveguide. With this module, 1.25Gbps high speed data transmission has
been successfully demonstrated. This module has a transmitter and a receiver and those are compactly packaged on the
each end of a film optical waveguide in order to provide easy electrical connection to board. This electric connection
configuration achieves more compact connector to the electric circuit board than the conventional configuration based on
the connection with optical connector. For the flexible optical link module, the highly bendable polymer film optical
waveguide has been developed by utilizing the unique replication technology. The propagation loss of the optical
waveguide is 0.07dB/cm at 850nm. And the bending loss is <0.2dB after 1million cycles at the bending radius 1mm.
These performances promises the practical application of the board to board data link through hinge of multimedia
device.
Recently, optical communication networks, such as FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home), are spreading rapidly to the end-user. And the expectation of replacing electrical signal lines in the body of mobile devices by optical lines is growing based on the recent increase of communication density and the need of smaller mobile devices, also. But, the business fields are facing directly to the consumers, therefore, the serious cost reduction and higher productivity for large-scale production are expected toward the optical communication devices.
In order to achieve these expectations, many efforts are given to develop the replicated polymer optical waveguide, SPICA (Stacked Polymer optical IC/Advanced). SPICA is based our unique replication technology which realizes both low cost and large-scale production. And we already realized the single mode polymer optical waveguide by adopting this original technology.
And, we evolved this technology to fabricate the V-groove integrated optical waveguide and the film optical waveguide. The V-groove integrated optical waveguide realizes cost reduction at the optical fiber alignment and assembling processes by introducing the optical fiber self-alignment for further cost reduction as a optical link module. The film optical waveguide which is as flexible as electrical cables and is durable of many bending cycle test are realized. In this paper, the technology of SPICA and the applications are discussed.
In this paper, we present a thermo-optic effect optical switch provided with heater electrodes to a single mode polymer optical waveguide fabricated by revolutionary replication technology. A low-cost and high-performance optical switch is a key issue to expand the FTTH and Metro Optical Networking. The optical switch consists of a Y-branch polymer waveguide and thin metal film heaters on the surface of the waveguide. The waveguide has been prepared by photopolymerization (2P) method, which is suitable for submicron fine pattern replication, e.g. diffractive optics, and for the large-scale production with a short processing time. Thin metal film heaters were formed on the waveguide using the bonding technology of MEMS. The insertion loss of less than 2.5 dB, the switching time of less than 3 ms and the extinction ratio of more than 15dB were obtained respectively. Moreover, VOA has also been produced with the
Mach Zehnder interferometer (MZI) system using the same technology as described above, and an attenuation rate of 25dB was obtained at a power consumption of 20mW.
A novel replication technology for fabricating polymer optical waveguides has been developed and named as SPICA (Stacked Polymer optical IC/Advanced). SPICA is superior to current semiconductor fabrication technology because it satisfies the needs of low-cost and high-volume manufacturing. Furthermore, SPICA can be processed and packaged much like as IC devices by using planar fabrication and batch processing. Using SPICA, a single-mode optical waveguide has been fabricated the optical characteristics of which include insertion loss of less than 0.2 dB/cm. Other functional devices, such as a coupler, tap-coupler, optical switch, VOA (Variable Optical Attenuator) and optical transceiver, were also successfully fabricated.
Mass-producible optical waveguide devices and their fabrication method for integrated optics are described. Single-mode polymer rib waveguides and grating couplers in planar polymer waveguides which are a key component for organic integrated optical devices have been successfully developed by using photopolymerization (2P) method. The method is based on an electron-beam lithography technique for writing original patterns and a replicating technique using a molding stamper.
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