Optical waveguiding in vacuum deposited polyaniline thin films

Abstract

Polyaniline thin films prepared by vacuum deposition of polyaniline powder, have been found to exhibit good optical waveguiding properties. The waveguide parameters, refractive index, propagation loss and depth, are found to be strongly affected by doping of these thin films. A detailed study of the optical absorption, effective refractive index, optical propagation losses and propagation depth for these thin films has been carried out using the integrated optics techniques.Vacuum deposited polyaniline thin film planar optical waveguides exhibit low optical attenuation and have optical refractive index 1.590 and excellent transmission in the wavelength range 350-650 nm, which make this polymer promising for integrated optical devices.