Integration and Characterization of LC/Polymer Gratings on Glass and Silicon Platform

In this paper we present two practical technological approaches to demonstrate that liquid crystals and composite materials can be employed to make low cost integrated optic devices with the specifications of fibre optic systems. In a first approach active properties are conferred to passive glass waveguides, by means of LC-based composite holographic grating cladding: this grating presents a specific morphology called POLICRYPS (POlymer LIquid CRYstal Polymer Slices). It can be electrically addressed, so that a tunable integrated optical filter has been achieved. In this paper we present the electro-optical characterization. In a second approach SiO2/Si V-grooves are filled with composite materials to produce a high performance integrated optical filter with the same POLICRYPS morphology. A first passive prototype of such optical filter is presented hereafter.