Elasto-optical properties of thin polymer films by prism coupling technique

Reliable measurement of stress dependent refractive index of thin polymer films has been achieved. The effect of the applied stress on the refractive index and birefringence of the films was investigated. The out-of-plane elastic moduli of the thin polymer films were deduced by using the same prism coupling setup. Three dimensional finite element method (FEM) analysis was used to obtain the principal stresses for each polymer film and combining them with the stress dependent refractive index measurements, the elasto-optic coefficients of the polymer films were determined, for the first time.