Low loss polymer waveguides fabricated by plasma etching for nonlinear-optical devices operating at telecommunication wavelengths

Summary form only given. Organic materials exhibit large optical nonlinearities and, hence, are attractive for parametric interactions, cascading, and wavelength demultiplexing. In poled polymer waveguides figures of merit comparable to inorganic materials were obtained for second-harmonic generation (SHG) at 1.55 /spl mu/m. However, the absolute conversion efficiency was limited by the high loss of several tens of dB cm/sup -1/ at the second-harmonic wavelength. To reduce the loss of polymer waveguides used for second-order nonlinear effects at telecommunication wavelengths, materials with low intrinsic absorption between 0.6 and 1.6 /spl mu/m have to be combined with techniques allowing one to form waveguides with low scattering losses. Measurements are presented which show that with suitable materials, fabrication processes (plasma etching), and guide geometries it is possible to produce improved nonlinear polymer waveguides with sufficiently low losses for parametric mixing and cascading at 1.3 and 1.5 /spl mu/m.