Optical waveguides fabricated by using all-wet-photolithography technique with UV curable sol-gel materials

We reported the high performance channel waveguides fabricated through all-wet-photolithography technique by using UV curable siloxane based sol-gel materials. The refractive indices of the sol-gel materials introduced here could be easily controlled and the resulting UV cured materials showed the excellent optical performance along with excellent thermal stability. The channel waveguides demonstrated here showed the low propagation losses with less polarization dependence at the wavelengths 1.31 /spl mu/m and 1.55 /spl mu/m. It was also demonstrated the fabrication process of the waveguides was greatly simplified and resulting in less time and cost consuming by utilizing all-wet-photolithography technique.