Shaping and characterization of an integrated optic on polymer by simple 3D printing

Eros Gavini (1, 2) , Sylvain Pernon (3) , Jordan Gastebois (2) , Nathalie Coulon (2) , Christophe Levallois (4, 5) , Alain Moréac (6, 7) , Arnaud Saint-Jalmes (7) , Gautier Querrec (8) , Bruno Bêche (2)

1 ENS Rennes - École normale supérieure - Rennes
2 IETR - Institut d'Électronique et des Technologies du numéRique
3 ISTIC [Rennes]
4 INSA Rennes - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes
5 FOTON - Institut des Fonctions Optiques pour les Technologies de l'informatiON
6 ScanMAT - Synthèse Caractérisation Analyse de la Matière
7 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes
8 UR - Université de Rennes

Integrated optics has been intensively developed the last decades for the production of components for telecommunications or sensors in metrology. The basic element constitutes the waveguide which transmits the information by guiding the light. The manufacturing processes take place in clean rooms with controlled atmosphere (pressure, temperature, dust) and with generally various deposition and coating machines. The production of these photonics devices remains relatively expensive since it is carried out in a clean room by series of manipulations which requires the intervention of a specialized engineer into a specific environment. More recently, techniques for manufacturing different mechanical parts of mostly research scientific devices have been developed using commercial 3D printers without the need of clean room environment. With such commercial machines, plastic materials are heated and then shaped by controlling their flow through a nozzle. This work concerns the study of the feasibility of realizing and shaping a kind of integrated optics by a simple 3D printer in a normal environment. It aims to understand and develop the fabrication of an integrated planar optics with polymer waveguides using a 3D printer and G-code programming. The coating processes and the G-codes of the 3D printer have been developed in order to produce the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) guiding structures onto a silicon/silica wafer. Finally, the characterization of this TPU organic (measurements of surface or energy tension, Raman analysis, ellipsometry measurements) and the optical injection made possible to validate this concept in terms of production and approach. The results concerning the shaping of various rib waveguides and obtaining a propagation of the light in organic thermoplastic polyurethane planar guides with fiber tapers by this simple and low-cost printing processes are positive. This work further proves that the development of integrated optics on thermoplastic polyurethane by 3D printing is possible; this opens the way to the realization of other optical patterns based on the 3D printer principle.

Mots clés: 3D printer; G-code; polymer; Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU); integrated optics; waveguides; optical characterizations

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Physique [physics]; Electromagnétisme; Matériaux; Optique / photonique

Eros Gavini, Sylvain Pernon, Jordan Gastebois, Nathalie Coulon, Christophe Levallois, et al.. Shaping and characterization of an integrated optic on polymer by simple 3D printing. Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering, 2023, Optical Metrology, 12622-65, pp.1-7. ⟨10.1117/12.2672419⟩. ⟨hal-04156231⟩