Photolithographically Manufactured Acrylate Polymer Multimode Optical Waveguide Loss Design Rules

This paper describes how design rules are established for photolithographically manufactured acrylate polymer optical multimode waveguide components by optical experimental measurements made on the manufactured waveguide component. The loss of individual waveguide components, such as straight sections, 90 ° bends, crossings, tapers and tapered bends must be known so that the combined loss of a cascade of such elements can be found to determine whether the interconnection's optical power budget is sufficient to achieve a good bit error rate. However, the loss depends on several factors: the materials: the polymer used for the core and for the cladding, the fabrication technique: e.g. the photolithographi