8th EOS Topical Meeting on Diffractive Optics

DO 2012

Nearly temperature independent waveguide gratings

M. R. Saleem1,3, M. B. Khan3, S. Honkanen1,2, J. Turunen1
1
University of Eastern Finland, Department of Physics and Mathematics, P. O. Box
111, FI- 80101, Joensuu, Finland
2
Aalto University, Department of Micro and Nanosciences, P. O. Box 13500, FI-
00760 Aalto Finland.
3
National University of Science and Technology, School of Chemical and Materials
Engineering, postal code 44000, H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
email: rizwan.saleem@uef.fi

Summary

We investigated nearly athermalized organic-inorganic devices as athermal guided

mode resonance filters GMRFs. The spectral reflectance efficiency is observed to be
nearly independent on temperature over tens of degrees above room temperature.
Two important factors are considered for the shift in the resonance peak; mainly
thermal expansion TEC and thermo-optic TOC coefficients of the selected materials.

Introduction

Transparent polymers have emerged as new materials in diffractive optics over the
last decade1. Polymer optical devices have advantages over inorganic devices, for
example, organic materials are more flexible, less brittle, require lower processing
temperatures. Processing inorganic materials typically required sophisticated etching
techniques while polymer structures can be fabricated, for example, by simply
replicating a master stamp at relatively low temperature. The thermal expansion
coefficients of polymers are an order of magnitude larger than those of optical
inorganic glasses. Thermal expansion and thermo-optic coefficient values of
polycarbonate used in our calculations are 6.55 x 10-5 and -1.07 x 10-4 °C-1. 2,3

In this work we designed binary grating structures in polycarbonate by using

Fourier Modal Method FMM. The subwavelength binary grating structures are
fabricated on Si substrates and then replicated in polycarbonate by nanoimprinting.
The surface profile of replicated grating structures in polymer is coated by a cover
layer of amorphous TiO2 at 120 °C by atomic layer deposition ALD.

Discussion

The spectral position of the resonance peak is observed to change towards longer
and shorter wavelength regions depending on the thermal expansion and thermo-
optic coefficients of the polycarbonate and TiO2 materials. Figure 1a shows the
central resonance peak at 855 nm, calculated at room temperature with full width at
half maximum FWHM 10.7 nm. Figure 1b shows thermal spectral shifts based on the
thermal expansion TEC and thermo-optic TOC coefficients at 100 °C. In Fig. 1b,
spectral curve 1 shifts to longer-wavelength region which is because of the TEC of

ISBN 978-3-00-033711-6 Delft, Netherlands

27 February - 1 March 2012
 8th EOS Topical Meeting on Diffractive Optics
DO 2012

polycarbonate and TiO2 film materials only, which is caused by an increase in

periodicity, fill factor, ridge height of the structure profile. Thereby, due to expansion
of these parameters a spectral shift of 4 nm/100 °C is observed towards longer
wavelengths. Spectral curve 2 shows a spectral shift of 3 nm/100 °C towards shorter
wavelengths due to the contribution of negative TOC of polycarbonate and TiO2
materials. This effect is an inherent characteristic to all types of dielectric bandpass
filters coated by thin TiO2 layer by any technique.4 A combined effect of these
spectral changes shows a thermal shift of 1 nm/100 °C towards longer wavelengths,
which is small enough in comparison to the FWHM of central resonance. The
experimental results are in good agreement to the theoretically calculated results.

TE-Mode resonance wavelength of binary grating at 25 °C TE-Mode resonance wavelength of binary grating at 100 oC
1 1
X: 852, Y: 1 1-TEC
0.9 X: 855, Y: 1 0.9 2-TOC
X: 856, Y: 1
3-TEC+TOC
0.8 0.8 X: 859, Y: 1

0.7 0.7
Reflectance
0.6
Reflectance

0.6 X: 847.5, Y: 0.5 X: 858.2, Y: 0.5

0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
800 810 820 830 840 850 860 870 880 890 900 800 810 820 830 840 850 860 870 880 890 900
Wavelength [nm] Wavelength (nm)

(a) (b)
Fig. 1 Spectral reflectance of binary grating structure at resonance wavelength (a) calculated central resonance wavelength at room
temperature (b) calculated central resonance wavelength at 100 °C due to TEC (1), TOC (2) and combined effect.

Conclusion
Nearly athermalized optical waveguide filters are designed and fabricated by
considering large thermal expansion materials (polymers). Combination of thermal
expansion and thermo-optic effects is responsible to keep the resonance peak close
to its original position over a range of tens of degrees above room temperature: the
spectral shift is small in comparison to the resonance line width at the central
wavelength. The experimentally measured results are in good agreement with the
calculated results. The replicated structures in polymers are economic in large-scale
production of nearly athermalized devices.

1
. H. P. Herzig, “Replication”, in Micro-optics: Elements, Systems and Applications (Taylor & Francis, London,
1997).
2
. G. P. Behrmann and J. P. Bowen, Appl. Opt. 14, 2483 (1993).
3
. H. S. Nalwa, Polymer Optical Fibers (American Scientific publisher, Valencia, CA, 2004).
4
. S. F. Pellicori, and H. Hettich, Appl. Opt. 27, 3061 (1988).

ISBN 978-3-00-033711-6 Delft, Netherlands

27 February - 1 March 2012