Polymeric Mach-Zehnder interferometer using serially coupled microring resonators

Abstract

We propose a novel geometry for a Mach-Zehnder interferometer in which one arm of the interferometer consists of serially coupled microresonators and the other a simple ridge waveguide. The device was fabricated in an optical polymer and its spectral characteristics were measured at telecommunications wavelengths. The serially coupled rings are modeled using a simple transfer matrix approach. Good agreement is found between the measurement and the theory.