Abstract

Hot embossing is an effective technique that structures high-precision micro-patterns of thin polymer films such as mostly thermoplastic polymers using a hard master for optical applications. This work presents a new hot embossing process for the fabrication of polymeric optical waveguide in thermosetting polymers. The near field pattern of the channel waveguide was observed and the propagation loss of this waveguide was evaluated at a 1550 nm wavelength. It is shown that the use of the hot embossing in thermosetting polymers is likely to be an attractive technique for simple processing in the fabrication of optical waveguides.

© 2003 Optical Society of America