聚合物光波导端面磁流变抛光工艺(英文)

Magnetorheological Polishing Technique for End-Faces of Polymer Optical Waveguides

光波导端面的表面质量会严重影响光波导器件的光耦合封装性能,耦合封装前必须对波导器件端面进行抛光处理.目前聚合物光波导端面主要依靠传统研磨盘进行抛光处理,该工艺工序复杂、抛光效率低已成为制约聚合物波导器件应用的瓶颈.基于聚合物光波导材料优良的加工特性,通过对比实验提出了聚合物光波导的磁流变端面抛光工艺.采用5μm、0.5μm和1μm粒径的氧化铈抛光粉分别配制研磨盘抛光液及磁流变抛光液对3 mm×3 mm聚合物光波导端面进行抛光实验,发现磁流变加工对聚合物光波导端面进行一次2 m in光栅扫描抛光就具有比传统研磨盘约3 h精、粗抛光较好的端面质量.经过白光干涉仪测量,磁流变抛光后光波导端面表面粗糙度的均方根值达到了2.6 nm,传统端面抛光端面粗糙度均方根值为128.7 nm.通过自动对准耦合平台测试,结果显示通过磁流变端面抛光的光波导的插入损耗由抛光前的32.7 dB降低到了17.8 dB.磁流变抛光方法可以对聚合物光波导端面进行快速、高性能的抛光,在光波导应用领域具有非常广阔的应用前景.

The end-face surface quality has great influence on the optical waveguide device＇s coupling performance,so the end-face polishing must be conducted before coupling.However,the end-face polishing of the polymer optical waveguide mainly relies on the traditional disk polishing,whose complex process and low polishing efficiency have become the bottleneck that restricts the wide application of polymer optical waveguide.A unique method for polishing end-faces of polymer optical waveguides via magnetorheological finishing（MRF） technique was put forward to achieve high optical quality surfaces based on the excellent machining properties of polymer.Experiments of polishing 3 mm×3 mm polymer optical waveguide end-face were conducted on specially designed end-polishing equipment based on traditional disk polishing fluid and MRF technique polishing fluid with CeO2 polishing abrasives with the diameters of 5 μm,0.5 μm and 1 μm,separately.Experimental results show that a 2-minute MRF with raster scan tool path for one time on the end-face has better polishing effect compared with traditional method of 3-hour rough and finishing polishing process.Using white-light interferometer we can observe that the root-mean-square（RMS） of surface roughness of the end-face of polymer optical waveguide is 2.6 nm polished by MRF while 128.7 nm by traditional polishing method.Optical coupling tests results show that the insert loss of the polymer optical waveguide has reduced from 32.7 dB to 17.8 dB after polished by MRF technique.With fast polishing speed and high quality polished end surfaces,MRF technique will become a promising method for the end-face polishing of polymer optical waveguides.