New Horizontal Frustum Optical Waveguide Fabrication Using UV Proximity Printing

Abstract: This paper presents a novel method to fabricate the horizontal frustum structure as a planar optical waveguide by using the proximity printing technique. A horizontal frustum optical waveguide with a both lateral and vertical taper structure was produced. The orthogonal and inclined masks with the diffraction effect were employed in lithography process. This method can precisely control each horizontal frustum optical waveguide geometric profile in the fabrication process. The horizontal frustum optical waveguide and its array with the same inclined angle were generated. The beam propagation simulation software (BPM_CAD) was used to modeling the optical performance. The simulation results reveal that the mode profile matched into horizontal frustum optical waveguide and fiber from the laser diode. The optical loss of horizontal hemi-frustum structure of optical waveguides was less than 0.2dB. The horizontal hemifrustum waveguide will be used for fiber coupling on boards for further optical communication systems.