Ultraviolet direct printing of rare-earth-doped polymer waveguide amplifiers

Polymer channel waveguide amplifier arrays were fabricated using ultraviolet direct printing methodology. The effects of different weight percentage (wt. %) combinations of rare-earth ions erbium (Er3+) and ytterbium (Yb3+) on the absorption spectrum, as well as the internal gain, were investigated. With an input signal power of ∼-18 dBm, the highest internal gain obtained is ∼16.5 dB at a wavelength of 1533 nm for a 20 mm long multimode channel waveguide codoped with ∼1 wt. % of Er3+ and ∼10 wt. % of Yb3+ derivatives. The UV direct printing methodology opens a simple platform for the fabrication of dense and compact polymer waveguide laser arrays.