Electro-optical component and method for making the same

Abstract

A light conducting layer is formed from a poleable or poled glassy polymer material, which has an e/o activity which is definitively destructable under ionizing radiation. A selective irradiation under a parallel beam will give sharp transitions from and e/o active area (or an area which can still be electro-optically activated) to an e/o inactive area. The buffer layers can also consist of such irradiated material. A suitable positioning of the electrodes between which, by means of a difference in voltage applied across the electrode connections, an electric field with a sufficient intensity and/or uniformity can be induced extending into the border area, on both sides of the transition boundaries, will make it possible to induce sharp refractive-index transitions. This is utilized to obtain sharp lateral definitions of waveguides induced by electric field poling in thin layers of glassy polymers. An electro-optical waveguide switch is described utilizing such sharp boundaries for the light conducting waveguide.