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AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
InventorsRaymond Zanoni, Qian Gong
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Integrated optical devices are provided wherein a film of polystyrene doped with methyl red (PS-MR) on a glass substrate, is masked, e.g. with one or more metallic strips on a glass plate and such film is irradiated with, e.g. a UV lamp, tuned within the absorption band of such film, in air, to photobleach the film portions around channels covered by the masking strips and reduce the refractive index thereof below that of the unbleached film channels. The bleached film portions then provide reflective beam confining interfaces which define the unbleached channels and form waveguides within the film. The invention takes advantage of photobleaching to change the index of refraction of portions of a thin film to define optical components therein and has located a class of films, including PS-MR, which, upon photobleaching, provide a considerable reduction in refractive index, enabling the definition of optical components in such film. The invention includes the methods of fabricating such integrated optics as well as the integrated optic products so-made.
An integrated optic comprising a film of polystyrene doped with methyl red on a substrate, which film has at least two spaced photobleached portions with a lesser bleached or unbleached part therebetween, said photobleached portions having a lesser index of refraction than said part to provide reflective boundaries thereat to define an optical component in said part.
An integrated optic comprising, a film of polystyrene doped with an azo dye which has been photobleached to reduce the refractive index thereof in a pattern, the bleached portion having a lesser index of refraction than the lesser bleached or unbleached part to define an optical component with said part.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.