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An athermal arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer relying on an all-polymer approach is reported. The all-polymer AWG consisting of polymer waveguides fabricated on a polymer substrate exhibits excellent performance. By properly adjusting the coefficient of thermal expansion of the polymer substrate, athermal and polarisation-independent AWG devices featuring a wavelength shift of less than +or-0.05 nm in the 25-65 degrees C temperature range could be demonstrated

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The current infrastructure of the communication has to be expanded rapidly due to the dramatic increase of data, that is transferred via the internet. The optical network technology is the most suitable technology for this demand. Not only glass ®bres are required, but also a broad range of optical components like splitters, switches and multiplexers, which are usually produced in silica technology. Polymeric materials are becoming more and more interesting for these applications, since they e.g. promise lower power consumption and lower production costs than their silica based pendants. Polycyanurate ester resins are a relatively new class of high-performance polymers with outstanding properties, for example high thermal stability, low optical loss, low dielectric constant, good adhesion and amazing mechanical properties. This paper focuses on the optical loss of such materials at 1550 nm, in the optimisation for use in integrated optics and for the production of embedded waveguides.

A graphene-based electro-absorption modulator has been integrated into a passive polymer waveguide platform for the first time. The opto-electronic properties of the structure are investigated with numerical simulations and measurements of a fabricated device. The graphene layers transferred to the polymer substrate were analyzed by means of Raman spectroscopy and the results indicate a high crystalline quality of the two-dimensional material. The voltage-dependent transmission through a 25 µm long device has been measured in the telecommunications-relevant wavelength range between 1500 nm and 1600 nm yielding an extinction ratio of 0.056 dB/µm

Recently developed photonic components for next-generation datacenter systems based on HHI´s PolyBoard integration platform are reviewed. Hybrid-integrated transmitters and receivers, including optical functionalities such as tunable lasers, polarization manipulators, 1x2 switches and variable optical attenuators, are presented. The flexibility of those devices provides the possibility of generating, routing and detecting multiple optical data flows, offering the potential of aggregating traffics of 1 Tb/s and beyond. In addition, vertically-stacked polymer waveguide structures are presented, opening the way towards the third dimension in photonic integration and allowing increasing the transmission capacity beyond the physical limit of standard single mode fibers. The freedom in the arrangement of the polymer waveguides allow for the matching to different multi-core fiber types, providing the possibility of processing in parallel the different optical flows. By means of micro-machining 45° mirrors on the different stack levels, the 3D stacked waveguide structure can act as an interface between multi-core fibers and planar optoelectronic devices such as photodiodes and laser diodes. Furthermore, a novel concept for a 4x4 three-dimensional optical switch based on 3D multi-mode interferometers is presented and numerically proven, showing potential for its application as interface between multi-core fibers and planar optoelectronic devices, as well as offering the possibility of reconfigurable NxN switching matrices

In this paper we explain how to use rate equations to describe a laser that includes integrated optical feedback. We find a relation between the threshold current, the voltage drop at the gain section, output power, linewidth, and side mode suppression ratio, and show experimental results.

Photonic devices and new functions based on HHI's hybrid integration platform PolyBoard are presented providing lowloss thin-film-element-based light routing, an on-chip micro-optical bench and mechanically flexible chips comprising optical and electrical waveguides. The newly developed transfer and integration of graphene layers enables the fabrication of active optoelectronic devices in the intrinsically passive polymer waveguide networks with bandwidths in the GHz range. These novel functionalities in combination with the mature thermo-optic components of the PolyBoard platform such as tunable lasers, switches and variable attenuators pave the way towards new applications of photonic integrated circuits in communications and sensors.