Crosslinkable fluorinated poly(arylene ethers) bearing phenyl ethynyl moiety for low-loss polymer optical waveguide devices

✍ Scribed by Hyung-Jong Lee; Eun-Mi Lee; Myung-Hyun Lee; Min-Cheol Oh; Joo-Heon Ahn; Seon Gyu Han; Hae Geun Kim

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 143 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-624X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0518(19981130)36:16<2881::aid-pola6>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

Crosslinkable fluorinated poly(arylene ethers) (FPAE-Fn-PEP) with high transparency and high thermal stability have been investigated for low-loss optical waveguide materials. FPAE-Fn-PEP bearing phenyl ethynyl moiety at the polymer chain end were synthesized by the reaction of 4,4Ј-(hexafluoro-isopropylidene)diphenol with an excess decafluorobiphenyl, followed by the reaction of 4-phenyl ethynyl phenol. The M n s and M w /M n s of the polymers determined by GPC with polystyrene standard were in the range of 6200 to 19,400 and 1.4 to 2.04, respectively. The resulting polymers were thermally crosslinked at 320°C for 2 h. The cured polymers show good chemical resistance and high thermal stability up to 510°C under nitrogen. The refractive indices of their films were controlled between 1.495 and 1.530 at 1.55 m by adjusting molecular weight. A single-mode channel waveguide made of FPAE-F20-PEP was fabricated by conventional photolithography and O 2 reactive ion etching (RIE). The propagation loss of the channel waveguide was measured and found to be less than 0.2 dB/cm at 1.55 m.