Direct electron-beam irradiation: A new technique for the erasure of second-order nonlinearity and the fabrication of channel waveguides by use of optical polymeric films

We demonstrate a novel and simple technique for fabrication of a nonlinear-optical polymeric waveguide device by direct electron-beam irradiation. To form a periodically poled nonlinear-optical polymer waveguide, we exposed dye-doped polymer films directly to electron beams with an energy of 25 keV. It became clear that irradiation with electron beams erased the second-order nonlinearity of poled polymer film. We could also confirm that a ridge-type channel waveguide was realized by means of this simple technique.