Mechanically tunable integrated beamsplitters on a flexible polymer platform

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible, monolithic PDMS-based waveguide platform with mechanically tunable beamsplitters, enabling adjustable optical splitting ratios through elastic deformation, suitable for large-scale optical experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel, mechanically tunable integrated beamsplitter platform on flexible polymer, demonstrating adjustable splitting ratios via elastic deformation, with simple fabrication methods.

Findings

Devices operate over a wide wavelength range

Full range of input/output ratios achieved

Low-cost fabrication process

Abstract

We report the development of a monolithic, mechanically tunable waveguide platform based on the flexible polymer polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS). Such devices preserve single mode guiding across a wide range of linear geometric distortions. This enables the realization of directional couplers with tunable splitting ratios via elastic deformation of the host chip. We fabricated several devices of this type, and verified their operation over a range of wavelengths, with access to the full range of input/output ratios. The low cost and relative ease of fabrication of these devices via a modified imprint lithographic technique make them an attractive platform for investigation of large scale optical random walks and related optical phenomena.