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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
Fabrication And Characterization Of Photonic Crystal Slow Light Waveguides And Cavities
Published on: November 30, 2012
Slow light structures in dye-doped polymer waveguides
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0425, USA. edward.mckenna@colorado.edu
Abstract:
We present a simple and consistent technique for fabricating slow light structures in dye-doped polymer waveguides using the process of irreversible photobleaching. The slow light structures are moiré gratings. The gratings are holographically written into channel waveguides photobleached in side-chained PMMA/DR1 films. The films are annealed during the photobleaching process in order to remove stresses in the films generated during the photobleaching process. These stresses have been observed to cause distortion and cracking of the film surface. The slowing factor for the moiré gratings is calculated from the reflectance spectrum of the waveguides using the Hilbert transform. Moiré gratings with slowing factors between 1.6 and 2.6 are demonstrated.
