Low-loss polyimide-Ta2O5-SiO2 hybrid ARROW waveguides

A low-loss polyimide-Ta
₂
O
₅
-SiO
₂
hybrid antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) is presented. The ARROW device was fabricated using both the organic and dielectric thin-film technologies. It consists of the fluorinated polyimide, tantalum pentoxide (Ta
₂
O
₅
), and silicon dioxide (SiO
₂
) hybrid layers deposited on a Si substrate. For transverse electric polarized light, the propagation loss of the waveguide as low as 0.4 dB/cm was obtained at 1.31 μm. The propagation loss for transverse magnetic polarized light is 1.5 dB/cm. An ARROW waveguide fabricated using the polyimide-Ta
₂
O
₅
-polyimide material system is also presented for comparison.