Optical waveguides fabrication on flexible PMMA substrate using aerosol-jet printing for automotive and aeronautical applications

Integrated photonic devices are powerful tools, offering advantages for many applications as data & telecommunications, biosensing, quantum computing, 6G networks, HPC…. However, traditional fabrication methods are costly limiting their commercial use. Recent studies on 3D additive fabrication have demonstrated rapid and automated one-step production of optical passive devices (waveguides, couplers…), allowing new opportunities for large-scale, eco-friendly and flexible photonic sub-systems [1]. For that, different deposition techniques have been developed such as fused deposition modeling (FDM), inkjet printing, stereolithography (SLA), and two-photon polymerization (2PP). 2PP presents high lateral resolution (∼ 100 nm) and enables to perform large-scale but time-consuming fabrication remains challenging. Ink-based printing methods provide a good balance between resolution and processing time [2].