Micro-ring resonators using polymer materials

Abstract

Micro-resonators can be considered as the building blocks of integrated photonic systems. Various optical components may be fabricated using micro-ring resonators. Polymer material can be used for fabrication of micro-ring resonators. There are several advantages using polymers for the fabrication of micro-resonators. First the required refractive index contrast to achieve negligible radiation loss for a micro-resonator with a radius of 10 /spl mu/m is available in polymers. Second it is very easy to fabricate three dimensional photonic integrated circuits This is essential for vertical coupling to the micro-resonators. Also various materials are available so that one can easily achieve phase matching condition by using different materials for the waveguide and microresonator. This opens the door to achieve very high Q resonators using polymer. In this paper we describe the design and fabrication of the first micro-resonator using polymer materials.