Manufacturing of embedded multimode waveguides by reactive lamination of cyclic olefin polymer and polymethylmethacrylate

Christian Kelb; Raimund Rother; Anne-Katrin Schuler; Moritz Hinkelmann; Maik Rahlves; Oswald Prucker; Claas Müller; Jürgen Rühe; Eduard Reithmeier; Bernhard Roth

doi:10.1117/1.OE.55.3.037103

8 March 2016 Manufacturing of embedded multimode waveguides by reactive lamination of cyclic olefin polymer and polymethylmethacrylate

Christian Kelb, Raimund Rother, Anne-Katrin Schuler, Moritz Hinkelmann, Maik Rahlves, Oswald Prucker, Claas Müller, Jürgen Rühe, Eduard Reithmeier, Bernhard Roth

Author Affiliations +

Optical Engineering, Vol. 55, Issue 3, 037103 (March 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.55.3.037103

Abstract

We demonstrate the manufacturing of embedded multimode optical waveguides through linking of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) foils and cyclic olefin polymer (COP) filaments based on a lamination process. Since the two polymeric materials cannot be fused together through interdiffusion of polymer chains, we utilize a reactive lamination agent based on PMMA copolymers containing photoreactive 2-acryloyloxyanthraquinone units, which allows the creation of monolithic PMMA-COP substrates through C-H insertion reactions across the interface between the two materials. We elucidate the lamination process and evaluate the chemical link between filament and foils by carrying out extraction tests with a custom-built tensile testing machine. We also show attenuation measurements of the manufactured waveguides for different manufacturing parameters. The lamination process is in particular suited for large-scale and low-cost fabrication of board-level devices with optical waveguides or other micro-optical structures, e.g., optofluidic devices.

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Christian Kelb, Raimund Rother, Anne-Katrin Schuler, Moritz Hinkelmann, Maik Rahlves, Oswald Prucker, Claas Müller, Jürgen Rühe, Eduard Reithmeier, and Bernhard Roth "Manufacturing of embedded multimode waveguides by reactive lamination of cyclic olefin polymer and polymethylmethacrylate," Optical Engineering 55(3), 037103 (8 March 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.55.3.037103

Published: 8 March 2016

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