Photobleaching Fabrication of Microring Resonator in a Chromophore-Containing Polymer

Photobleaching is demonstrated to be a viable method for the fabrication of polymer waveguide microring resonators for the first time. Resonators made with this simple, one-step fabrication technique have shown extinction ratio and insertion loss better than 15 and 9 dB, respectively. This method does not involve solvents or chemicals and can be used to make microring resonators in polymer thin films that are not compatible with other fabrication techniques, and therefore, can be a useful complement to traditional fabrication methods.