Slow light structures in dye-doped polymer waveguides

摘要

We present a simple and consistent technique for fabricating slow light structures in dye-doped polymer waveguides using the process of irreversible photobleaching. The slow light structures are moire gratings. The gratings are holographically written into channel waveguides photobleached in side-chained PMMA/ DR1 films. The films are annealed during the photobleaching process in order to remove stresses in the films generated during the photobleaching process. These stresses have been observed to cause distortion and cracking of the film surface. The slowing factor for the moire gratings is calculated from the reflectance spectrum of the waveguides using the Hilbert transform. Moire gratings with slowing factors between 1.6 and 2.6 are demonstrated.