We have developed two-typed polymer-based devices for optical communications. One is for ultra high-speed signal processing using nonlinear optical(NLO) polymers, such as electro-optic(EO) Mach-Zehnder(MZ) modulators, EO 2x2 switches, 4- and 16- arrayed MZ modulator, and wavelength converters based on difference frequency generation(DFG). The other is for WDM optical communications using low-loss optical polymers, such as 1x2, 2x2, 4 arrayed 2x2 digital optical switches, NxN arrayed waveguide grating(AWG) multiplexers and routers, and tunable Bragg grating filters. Also, all polymeric wavelength channel selector composed of two AWGs for demultiplexing and multiplexing signals and 16-channel EO polymer gate array between the two AWGs is proposed and fabricated. For these devices, we have synthesized new side chain NLO polymers and low-loss optical polymers. The developed polymeric photonic devices have been reviewed from materials to packaging.

Myung-hyun Lee was born in Kyungnam, Korea, on January 22, 1962. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University, Korea in 1985 and 1987, respectively, and the D. Phil. Degree from Oxford University, U.K., in 1993. His thesis research was on the optical properties of nano-sized silver particles. In 1993, he joined Electronics Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Daejeon, Korea, where he worked on the development of photonic switching components. Since 1993, he has been engaged in research on polymeric photonic materials and devices. In addition, he is developing nano-photonic devices for wideband planar lightwave circuits applications. He is now the team leader of the Wideband Photonics Device Team, ETRI.