A New Class of Highly Oriented Stable Polymer Material for High-Speed Electro-optic Waveguide Devices

A new method is proposed for the development of stable, high speed electro-optic polymers for optical waveguide devices such as switches and couplers. Thin polymer films will be produced by a new process that we refer to as flash evaporation. The process is based on negative electron beam photoresist technology, capable of easily processing thin-film and waveguide structures on various substrates, including silicon. A new family of acrylate monomer materials containing highly nonlinear chromophores will be evaporated in vacuum and poled at room temperature in the liquid state before polymerization by electron-beam cross linking. The film thickness can vary from about 500A Degrees to 5 m, and individually poled multilayer film structures can be constructed. We believe that this unique process is superior to any previous approach for forming EO polymers, and it will enable the fabrication of thin polymer films with a strong polar orientation, superior thermal and mechanical properties and improved aging characteristics.