Planar Waveguides And Other Confined Geometries

Applications in planar optical waveguide chips

Planar waveguides play a crucial role in enabling high-speed data transfer in optical interconnects. Ultra-low loss optical planar waveguide technology is a critical research area driven by the need to improve energy effi-ciency and advance the power handling capability, performance, function and complexity of photonic integrated circuits and systems-on-chip. They are typically fabricated as thin films with a higher refractive index than the surrounding materials. This configuration allows the waveguide to confine light within the film. An all-optical plasmonic sensor platform designed for smartphones based on planar-optical waveguide structures integrated in a polymer chip is reported for the first time.