Humidity dependence of the refractive index of deuterated polymethylmethacylate (d-PMMA) is examined at a wavelength of 1.3 μm using the return loss method. The refractive index of d-PMMA increases as humidity increases at room temperature, while it decreases as humidity increases at temperatures higher than 60 °C. This humidity dependence was ascribed to the counterbalance between moisture sorption and swelling. Some hydrophobic polymers, such as silicone resin and fluorinated epoxy resin were affected by humidity to a lesser degree than d-PMMA.

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We fabricated a 57 cm long waveguide circuit and an arrayed-waveguide-grating (AWG) demulti/multiplexer using deuterated and fluorinated methacrylate polymers, and examined the influence of environmental change on their transmission characteristics. A 57 cm waveguide with a loss of 0.1 dB/cm at 1.3 µ m exhibited a slight loss increase of 0.03 dB/cm when the humidity was raised from 13 to 98%RH and a negligible loss change when the temperature was increased to 70° C. On the other hand temperature and humidity changes respectively caused wavelength shifts of 0.9 and 5 nm in the transmission peaks of an AWG with an adjacent channel spacing of 0.65 nm. Furthermore we confirmed that the influence of the humidity resulted from water sorption in the waveguide polymers.

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