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

快离子的辐照可以成为一个很好的工具，赋予一个新的功能。我们进行了这项研究，以澄清这些离子辐照效应对聚合物材料的适用性。我们用1.0 MeV H^+离子辐照氟化聚酰亚胺薄膜，用椭圆偏振光谱法测量了薄膜的折射率。折射率增量高达3.3%，远高于SiO_2玻璃的折射率增量。因此，很自然地假设离子辐照聚合物可以是制造高性能聚合物基光波导的良好工具。

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.