Voltage-controlled all-polymer reconfigurable optical power splitter

Abstract

A reconfigurable optical 1 × N splitter design is proposed by which incoming optical power can be diverted to any of the N output branches of the device. Tri-cyano-vinylidene-di-phenyl-aminobenzene (TCVDPA) doped SU-8 electro optic polymer is assumed for core material with SU-8 as under and over-clad. Higher-order splitting can be achieved by cascading the 1 × 2 basic power splitter. This paper discuss 1 × 4 optical power splitter which is fully reconfigurable. The Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-Poly(stryene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) electrodes dynamically control the direction in which the power will be diverted. The voltage applied to electrodes determines the splitting ratio at each junction. The design is optimized to achieve diversion of all incoming optical power to a single output node. The output node received around 90 % of incoming power after design optimization.