Fluorinated Polymers for Photonics - From Optical Waveguides to Polymer-Clad Glass Optical Fibers

In this paper, our work in the field of fluorinated UV-curable polymers is reviewed. These polymers possessing tunable low refractive indices and low optical propagation losses for telecommunication wavelengths are intended to be used as core and cladding materials for the fabrication of passive channel waveguides in optical microchips on the polymer platform. This application requires low thermo-optic coefficients. With this goal, we used a combination of fluorinated polymers with low-refractive index inorganic nanoparticles of SiO2 and MgF2. Another application requiring extremely low refractive indices is polymer cladding for optical glass fibers. UV-curable fluorinated monomers/oligomers were used.