Direct laser written polymer structures and passive devices for photonics applications

Direct laser writing is a good alternative to photolithography for rapid prototyping as it is a maskless process. Here we describe different polymer structures and passive devices fabricated using a direct laser-writing system based on a He-Cd (325 nm) UV laser. This has been used to fabricate structures in polymer such as bumps, micro-via, mechanical guides for fibre alignment and passive devices such as beam splitters and combiners which can be used for incoherent light sources such as LEDs. A custom multifunctional acrylate photo-polymer with good thermal and mechanical properties was used to fabricate the structures.