Fast maskless fabrication of electrooptic polymer devices by simultaneous direct laser writing and electric poling of channel waveguides

The conventional process of fabricating electrooptic (EO) polymer waveguide devices involves electric poling to achieve noncentrosymmetric order and photomasks to define channel waveguides by reactive ion etching or photobleaching. However, these techniques are restricted to passive waveguides since the temperature involved destroys the EO effect by randomizing the poling order of active molecules. In this paper, we will demonstrate a novel but simple technique of simultaneous direct laser writing and electric poling of arbitrary channel waveguides that have EO properties. This technique can be very useful for the fast prototyping of active devices such as modulators and switches.