Polymeric optical waveguide with plastic optical fiber guides for passive alignment fabricated by hot embossing

The simple fabrication of a passive alignment structure, and the simple connection of polymeric optical waveguides (POWs) and plastic optical fibers (POFs) are presented. Optical waveguides with large core sizes of 500 and 1000 μm were fabricated, and a low propagation loss of 0.21-0.23 dB/cm at 650 nm was achieved in these waveguides. Using a structure with the same core and fiber guide patterns as the master, a passive alignment structure was fabricated easily by hot embossing. POWs directly connected to POFs with passive alignment were realized and the coupling loss from POF to POF through POW was measured to be 1.6dB at an optimum core width of 900μm for 980μm core size POFs.