Polymer M-Z Thermal Optical Switch at 532-nm Based on Wet Etching and UV-Writing Waveguide

Abstract

Polymer thermal optical switches have low power consumption and 532 nm is the communication window of polymer fiber. Polymer thermal optical switches at 532 nm are rarely reported, because of switching extinction ratio properties that are restricted by modes of the waveguide. Single mode waveguide at 532 nm is hard to fabricate due to the dissolution of core and cladding materials. A polymer M-Z thermal optical switch at 532 nm was first demonstrated based on the wet etching method. The proposed thermal optical switch was consisted of silica substrate, photosensitive polymer core, and cladding material. The device was fabricated and tested with the power consumption of 6.55mW, extinction of 4.8 dB, and switching time of 0.23 ms (rise)/0.28 ms (down). An optimized switch structure combining with the UV-writing technique and graphene thermal conduction layer was proposed based on the experiments above. A side electrode was designed to reduce the power consumption and the switching time. The optimized device was calculated to have a power consumption of 1.5 mW. The switching time of the UV-writing device was simulated to be 18.2 μs (rise) and 85 μs (down). The device is promising in the wearable device and laser radar area.