Polymer micro- and nanophotonic sensors realized using replication technologies

Polymers are transparent in the visible, mechanically flexible, cost-effective, and therefore attractive materials for optical sensors. Furthermore, high-quality micro- and nanophotonic structures can be realized in polymers using replication-based technologies. This paper will demonstrate single mode waveguide Bragg grating sensors realized using various polymers, and as such illustrate the capabilities of replication technologies both for fabricating microstructures (waveguides with typical cross-sectional dimensions of a few micron) and nanostructures (gratings with typical pitch of a few hundred nanometer) using these technologies. Furthermore, we illustrate that the sensor properties can easily be tuned by selecting the appropriate polymer material