Domain-Inverted Electrooptic Polymers

Conventional electrooptic materials failed to provide a polarization-insensitive switch unless an exotic electrode structure is employed. Such a drawback prohibits system insertion of electrooptic devices into an array of optical interconnection network. Radiant Research, Inc., proposes a novel electrooptic polymer-based domain inverted waveguide structure to eliminate such a bottleneck. A 2x2 polarization-insensitive cross bar based on the proposed domain-inverted electrooptic polymer waveguide will be demonstrated. Such a device further improves the switch performance with a simplified fabrication scheme, leading to a higher reliability and reproducibility of the devices. Conventional electrooptic switches must have multiple electrode sections with multiple terminals, which is impossible for high-speed operation and compact device integration imposed by BMDO-related applications such as scalable recirculating shuffle network[1] and computer-to-computer interconnect developed by JPL[2]. Commercially available EO materials such as LD-3 and Dispersive Red 19 from AdTech and others will employed in this program. Employment of mature electrooptic polymers provides us with a universal means of implementing the proposed switching elements to any optoelectronic networks where reconfigurable optical interconnects are required. At the end of Phase I, we will lay the technical foundation for the design and fabrication of high performance switches with simplified fabrication scheme.