Fabrication of polymeric optical waveguides

The paper reports the fabrication of polymeric optical waveguides. Single mode planar slab waveguides and straight waveguides have been fabricated from the organic polymer B-staged bisbenzocyclobutene (BCB) from Dow Chemical. A low cost fabrication method, chemical etching, is used to form the waveguides on BK-7 glass substrates. The processing conditions required for the fabrication of single mode optical waveguides have been thoroughly investigated and are presented.