Thermal effects on propagation in polymer waveguides in optical interconnects

Abstract EN

Finite difference beam propagation modelling (FD-BPM) calculates the effect of thermal gradients in an optical backplane on the optical field propagation in a polymer multimode linearly tapered waveguide.

Compared to straight waveguides, tapered entrances offer improved power coupling for a wide range of optical source lateral offsets.

Surface temperature gradients of 0.5 °C/μm across the taper were found to degrade this benefit due to the thermo-optic effect of the polymer.

However, higher surface temperature gradients improve power coupling in two discrete ranges of lateral source offset.