Mechanism of Refractive Index Increase Induced in Polymers by Ion Irradiation and Its Application to the Development of Optical Devices

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Irradiation of swift ions can be a good tool to give a new function to dielectrics. We carried out this research to clarify the applicability of these ion irradiation effects to polymer materials. We irradiated 1.0-MeV H^<+> ions to a fluorinated polyimide film and the refractive index was measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The increment in refractive index reaches as high as 3.3%, much higher than the value observed in SiO_2 glass. Therefore, it is natural to assume that the ion irradiation to the polymer can be a good tool to fabricate a high-performance polymer-based optical waveguide.