Return Loss Measurements for the Determination of Critical Materials Parameters for Polymer Optical Waveguides

There is a significant amount commercial and research activity currently centered around the deployment of various optical networks, including wavelength division multiplexing systems1 and passive optical networks. Recently, there has been increased effort devoted to investigating the use of polymers as the materials for passive components in these systems, such as wavelength division multiplexers2 and splitters. Low loss polymer single-mode waveguides have been demonstrated in a number of systems to this point3,4 and it is likely that components with sufficiently low insertion loss will be available in the near future.