Low-loss polyimide-Ta2O5-SiO2 hybrid ARROW waveguides

A low-loss polyimide-Ta 2 O 5 -SiO 2 hybrid antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) is presented. The ARROW device was fabricated using both the organic and dielectric thin-film technologies. It consists of the fluorinated polyimide, tantalum pentoxide (Ta 2 O 5 ), and silicon dioxide (SiO 2 ) hybrid layers deposited on a Si substrate. For transverse electric polarized light, the propagation loss of the waveguide as low as 0.4 dB/cm was obtained at 1.31 μm. The propagation loss for transverse magnetic polarized light is 1.5 dB/cm. An ARROW waveguide fabricated using the polyimide-Ta 2 O 5 -polyimide material system is also presented for comparison.