Physics / mechanism
Polymer photonics uses organic polymer films as the waveguiding medium instead of silica or III-V semiconductors. Light is confined by refractive index contrast between polymer core (n ≈ 1.4–1.7, tunable via monomer selection) and cladding. Key functional mechanisms: electro-optic (EO) effect in chromophore-doped polymers (e.g., poled PMMA or AJL8-doped systems achieving r₃₃ > 200 pm/V, versus LiNbO₃’s ~30 pm/V), thermo-optic switching, and passive waveguide routing. Fabrication routes include spin-coating, nanoimprint, and direct laser writing—all wafer-scale compatible. Bandwidth potential exceeds 100 GHz in EO modulators; insertion loss remains the gap (2–5 dB/cm vs. <0.1 dB/cm for SiPh).
Competitive landscape
The primary competition is silicon photonics (mature ecosystem, CMOS fabs, dense integration) and lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI, high r₃₃, low loss, but expensive and hard to integrate). Polymer sits between them on cost/performance.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.