SBIR-STTR Award

We propose to design and synthesize new polymers that are more conductive than currently used UV-curable polymer at both low and high temperatures (~200 oC ). Low loss, non-UV curable host polymers will also be identified and developed. The more conductive polymers and the host polymers will be blended or covalently incorporated. Thin films and waveguides will be prepared to examine film quality, film resistivity at different temperatures and voltages, as well as dielectric constant and optical loss. During Phase I, the goal is to increase conductivity of cladding materials to a level that is two orders of magnitude higher than that of EO polymers made from PWC proprietary highly active chromophores. At the end of Phase I, working devices will be fabricated using the more conductive polymer blends to demonstrate the enhancement in EO performance. The use of proposed cladding polymer materials with increased conductivity in polymer modulators is expected to enhance a poling efficiency by 35%. That will translate into cost-effective, broadband devices with driving voltages under 3 V that satisfy reliability requirements of telecommunication industry.

Pacific Wave Industries (PWI) proposes to design and synthesize novel classes of conducting polymers. They should not only possess good conductivity, high thermal stability and reasonable optical loss at work wavelength, but also should have good processibility. Good processibility of conducting polymers is of top importance in our applications in cladding layers. To enhance processibility, PWI will employ its state-of-the art methodology to reach all of its objectives. At the end of Phase II, workable devices using proposed conducting polymer in the cladding layer would be expected with an improvement of poling efficiency by 35%. That will translate into cost-effective, broadband devices with driving voltages under 3 V that satisfy the requirements of telecommunication industry.

Keywords:
Conductive Cladding, Electro-Optic Polymer