Variable optical attenuator based on a bent polymer/SiON waveguide

Abstract

A new method for bend loss in a curved polymer/SiON waveguide is presented and it is used to design a novel variable optical attenuator. The device principle is based on influencing the bend loss in a waveguide by changing the lateral refractive index contrast defining the guide. The beam propagation method is employed in the numerical simulation. The designed optical attenuator has a maximum attenuation of -46.1 dB. The response time was below 5 ms.