Thermal behaviours of silicone-based optical interconnects with mirror optical coupling

The thermal stability of mirror coupling in polymer optical interconnects has been investigated by means of of the FVM (finite volume method) based software FLOTHERM. According to the approach, thermal simulations were performed to study polymer waveguides layers within polymer optical interconnects with mirror coupling solution. In the case of mirror-coupling, temperature distributions and gradients in the key waveguide layer were analyzed. With this simulated temperature distribution and the experimentally evaluated refractive indices and thermo-optic coefficients (TOC) of core and cladding silicones, the influence on the maximum data transmission capability in silicone based waveguides is discussed as well as the impact on waveguide insertion loss figures at 850 nm.