Fabrication and characterization of polymeric optical waveguides using standard silicon processing technology

We report the fabrication and characterization of a rib polymeric waveguide having a thick layer of oxidized porous silicon as an innovative solution for the lower cladding. The waveguide was fabricated using standard silicon substrates and Si-based technology. The multimodal guiding structure has a polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) core and the innovative lower cladding was obtained by thermal oxidation of a porous silicon layer. The waveguide does not have the upper cladding. Propagation loss measurements were performed at 1.48 mu m using the cut-back method. We obtained propagation loss of about 1.7 dB/cm, confirming the possibility to use the porous silicon oxide as the lower cladding layer, for low cost waveguide applications.