Fabrication and evaluation of flexible Mach-Zehnder waveguide structure embedded in a poly(dimethylsiloxane) thin film using a proton microbeam

A flexible Mach-Zehnder (MZ) optical waveguide was fabricated in a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) film by proton beam writing (PBW). A focused 750 keV proton microbeam was used to fabricate a 40 × 20 mm2 MZ optical waveguide structure with a width of 8 µm embedded in a PDMS film for the single-mode light propagation of infrared (IR) laser light. The structure was measured by ion-beam-induced luminescence (IBIL) analysis and the beam fluence was optimized according to the IBIL intensity obtained from the waveguide structure. The entire structure of the MZ waveguide functioned well, confirmed by observing the near-field pattern (NFP) with a tunable IR laser (1.55 µm) for different PDMS film conditions. The optical throughput measurements for different sample configurations were obtained under continuous mechanical stress and a relatively low optical loss was observed at an inclination angle of 16°. Our results suggest that the MZ waveguide can be used for optical interlink connections under continuous mechanical stress.