Flexible, stable, and easily processable optical silicones for low loss polymer waveguides

Photopatternable optical silicone materials have been developed that can be fabricated into flexible polymer waveguides using conventional film processing and photolithography techniques. Waveguides designed for multimode applications have demonstrated loss of 0.05 dB/cm at 850 nm. These waveguides have proven stable in 85% relative humidity and 85°C storage conditions for greater than 2000 hours to date with no degradation in optical performance. Further, this polymer waveguide system has shown sufficient adhesion to flexible polyimide substrates without any curling, and passed bending tests to a 1 mm radius without damage. © 2013 Copyright SPIE.