Electro-Optic Polymer Devices

Electro-optic (EO)polymers, processed into thin multilayer films, exhibit large nonresonant EO coefficients and low dielectric constants from DC to multi-GHz frequencies. Orientation of the constituent nonlinear optical chromophores, usually accomplished by electricfield poling, provides an EO coefficient suitable for modulation of light beams propagating in the plane of the polymer film. Thus, EO polymers are ideally suited for applications in integrated optics.The field EO polymer integrated optics has been developing rapidly during the past several years. Recent advances include the formulation of poled crosslinked epoxies and guest-host polyimides exhibiting thermal stability at temperatures significantly higher than those previously achieved with thermoplastic acrylate chemistry. These developments are an essential first step toward achieving practical materials exhibiting stability to manufacture, assembly, and end-use in modem electronic systems applications. This paper provides an introduction to EO polymer waveguide devices for applications to electronic packaging and interconnection.