Integrated optic devices based on nonlinear optical polymers

An examination is made of the state of the art of nonlinear optical polymeric materials in view of their potential advantages. It is shown that these organic materials have many attractive features compared to LiNbO₃ and III-V semiconductors with regard to their use in integrated optic circuits, especially since the level of integration is ever increasing. Considering more specifically electro-optic devices, a description is given of some of the theoretical background and basic properties. These polymers have already demonstrated a very high and extremely fast electro-optic effect compared to LiNbO₃. It is also shown how low-loss waveguides can be fabricated by using easy techniques such as direct UV bleaching. The performance of phase modulators, Mach-Zehnder interferometers, and 2×2 space switches built with such polymers is already very promising