Fabrication and characterization of optical waveguides with a UV-curable epoxi

In this work, polymeric planar optical waveguides are fabricated and characterized on soda-lime slides. Waveguides were fabricated using a spin-coating technique which allowed us to realize the deposition of the epoxy UV-curable, in our case, NOA61. Polymer viscosity was changed by using two different techniques: heating it and dissolving it in acetone. To characterize these waveguides we used the prism-coupling technique to measure the effective indexes in the polymeric film, and also to calculate the refractive index and the film thickness. Theoretical results were checked by using a profile meter to compare the real thickness of the polymeric film with the theoretical ones.