Integrated optical polymer amplifiers

Polymeric optical waveguides and devices are becoming attractive for communication systems, sensors, and signal processing. Different polymers have different characteristics, and affect the fabrication processes and performances of the fabricated polymer devices. Optical waveguide amplifiers have been fabricated using erbium and ytterbium rare earth ions codopants in epoxy novalak resin. The absorption spectrum shows that the presence of Yb ³⁺ ions enhances the absorption efficiency of Er³⁺ ions, and Er³⁺ luminescence at a wavelength of ∼1.54μm was observed. Er³⁺-Yb³⁺ codoped polymeric channel waveguides were fabricated using electron beam direct writing and UV direct printing. With an input signal power of <-18dBm, an optical gain of 13dB at a wavelength of 1.533μm was measured in an 18mm long multimode channel waveguide.