Abstract

The optical anisotropy of planar polyimide lightguides in an atmosphere of n-heptane/iso-octane is investigated in a transient experiment for pure and several mixed-vapor concentrations. The polymer sensor responds only to n-heptane and not to iso-octane vapors. However, the presence of the latter affects the dynamic behavior of the waveguide anisotropy, which can be fitted by a stretched exponential time dependence. The saturation values of the birefringence are an absolute measure for the n-heptane concentration and are not affected by the presence of the iso-octane vapors.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

Evaluating polyimides as lightguide materials

Rainer Reuter, Hilmar Franke, and Claudius Feger
Appl. Opt. 27(21) 4565-4571 (1988)

Selective optical detection of aromatic vapors

Robert P. Podgorsek and Hilmar Franke
Appl. Opt. 41(4) 601-608 (2002)

Channel-optical-waveguide fabrication based on electron-beam irradiation of polyimides

Yasuko Yamada Maruo, Sigekuni Sasaki, and Toshiaki Tamamura
Appl. Opt. 34(6) 1047-1052 (1995)

Zero-birefringence photosensitive polyimides for optical waveguides

Sung Ho Baek, Jae-Wook Kang, Xiangdan Li, Myong-Hoon Lee, and Jang-Joo Kim
Opt. Lett. 29(3) 301-303 (2004)

Electro-optic and thermo-optic measurements of birefringence of LiNbO₃ waveguides

R. Stolte and R. Ulrich
Opt. Lett. 20(2) 142-144 (1995)