Polymeric Waveguide Beam Deflector for Electrooptic Switching

We fabricated and demonstrated a beam deflector implemented in an electrooptic polymer planar waveguide. An array of prismshaped electrodes formed on the top of the waveguide induces selective refractive index change in the core polymer layer, which results in the tilt of the propagation direction of the guided beam. Waveguide beam deflectors have potential applications in the emerging photonics technologies such as optical storage systems, optical phased array antenna, and optical switching. The deflection sensitivity of 28mrad/kV, and the maximum deflection angle of ±8.4mrad at ±300V were obtained for this first demonstrated device.