Novel design for power splitters in polymer materials

A new design for power splitters in transparent materials is presented. The common divider built with a cascade of Y- branches is replaced by a structure using the coupling of evanescent fields. This is demonstrated at the example of PMMA. It is structured using a photomask and UV-radiation in order to form the waveguides in the surface. The parameters of the material, especially the refractive index profile after UV-exposure, are fed into a computer simulation of the new design using beam propagation method software. The calculation leads to an optimum layout which is transformed to a photomask for the irradiation process. The theoretical as well as the experimental results are presented. A good agreement between calculation and measurement is obtained.