Design of Optical Ridge Waveguide in Polymer Devices

By using the theory of the five asymmetry planar waveguide and the effective refractive index method(ERIM),the mode characteristics and propagation loss of the optical ridge waveguide,which is covered by the upper and lower electrodes,were analyzed.The computed results indicated the theoritical limit of propagation loss of the waveguide is less than 0.1 dB/cm if the thickness of the core layer is more than 0.8 μm and the thickness of covered layer is more than 3.0 μm,and if the rib height is 0.1-0.2 μm and the width of the ridge waveguide is 7-5 μm,the transverse mode of the ridge waveguide is single mode at 1.55 μm wavelength.