This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will investigate a new material and fabrication approach for the low cost and rapid production of both passive and active integrated optic components. The technology is based on a highly efficient holographic photopolymer material, DMP-128, from Polaroid Corporation. Arbitrary patterns can be directly written in the photopolymer using argon laser and a specially developed high speed laser writer. Because of the large index changes possible in a DMP photopolymer, excellent waveguides, couplers, splitters, filters, and other passive components can be fabricated with little difficulty by direct writing individual or integrated components directly in the DMP substrate. In addition, it is also possible to create high speed liquid crystal based active switch and modulators using the same DMP system. Since the index changes in DMP are due to porosity variations, the material can be infused with liquid crystal (LC) creating large index changes in response to an applied voltage. Due to the unique nanometer pore configuration of the DMP, nematic liquid crystals switch with microsecond speeds, three orders of magnitude faster than in conventional LC cells Fiber optic telecommunications would benefit from integrated optical matrix switches with microsecond speed. A nationwide fiber optic network will require massive numbers of inexpensive passive coupling and splitting devices. New datacom networks are now being planned that require wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and tunable filters. These and other near-future commercial and government related applications are expected to open to this new technoloqy.
