Light propagation in novel fluid infiltrated polymer waveguide arrays

Propagation of light in periodic photonic structures has triggered great interest in the past decade due to the possibilities to study fundamental physical phenomena of the interplay of periodicity and nonlinearity. In all such studies the use of high quality samples with reconfigurable properties is of key importance. Fluid infiltrated photonic crystal ´holey´ fibres have proved an excellent platform for studying the interaction between arrays of nonlinear waveguides as well as novel concept of bio-sensing. However the fabrication of such fibres can be cost and time ineffective, as well as can have significant geometric constraints. This work presents a new air-structured integrated optic platform which is a planar analogue of photonic-crystal fibres. These planar devices are fabricated using high resolution polymer lithography in combination with a thin-film lamination technique to embed air filled features within the planar optical waveguide structures.