Polymer materials exhibit unique properties in the fabrication of optical waveguide devices, electromagnetic devices, and bio-devices. Direct laser writing (DLW) technology is widely used for micro-structure fabrication due to its high processing precision, low cost, and no need for mask exposure. This paper reviews the latest research progresses of polymer-based micro/nano-devices fabricated using the DLW technique as well as their applications. In order to realize various device structures and functions, different manufacture parameters of DLW systems are adopted, which are also investigated in this work. The flexible use of the DLW process in various polymer-based microstructures, including optical, electronic, magnetic, and biomedical devices are reviewed together with their applications. In addition, polymer materials which are developed with unique properties for the use of DLW technology are also discussed.

Optical multipath RF self-interference cancellation (SIC) based on phase modulation for full-duplex communication is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. Phase modulation is utilized to convert the RF signal into optical domain, in which the time delay tuning, amplitude tuning and phase inversion for multipath RF SIC are completed. The comprehensive theoretical model of the optical multipath RF SIC system is established, and the factors affecting SIC performance including the time delay, amplitude and phase deviations are analyzed. The experimental results verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme for full-duplex communication with the cancellation depth of 26 dB and 28 dB over 100 MHz at central frequency of 6 GHz and 10 GHz, respectively. A figure of merit of the maximum interference to signal of interest ratio is defined to characterize the SOI recovery capability of optical RF SIC system.

Polymers are promising materials for fabricating photonic integrated waveguide devices. Versatile functional devices can be manufactured using a simple process, with low cost and potential mass-manufacturing. This paper reviews the recent progress of polymer photonic integrated devices fabricated using the UV imprinting technique. The passive polymer waveguide devices for wavelength filtering, power splitting, and light collecting, and the active polymer waveguide devices based on the thermal-optic tuning effect, are introduced. Then, the electro-optic (EO) modulators, by virtue of the high EO coefficient of polymers, are described. Finally, the photonic biosensors, which are based on low-cost and biocompatible polymer platforms, are presented.

A refractive index sensor based on bimodal waveguide interferometer is demonstrated on the low-cost polymer platform for the first time. Different from conventional interferometers which make use of the interference between the light from two arms, bimodal waveguide interferometers utilize the interference between the two different internal modes in the waveguide. Since the utilized first higher mode has a wide evanescent tail which interacts with the external environment, the interferometer can reach a high sensitivity. Instead of vertical bimodal structure which is normally employed, the lateral bimodal waveguide is adopted in order to simplify the fabrication process. An unique offset between the centers of single mode waveguide and bimodal waveguide is designed to excite the two different modes with equal power which contributes to the maximum fringe visibility. The bimodal waveguide interferometer is finally fabricated on optical polymer (Ormocore) which is transparent at both infrared and visible wavelengths. It is fabricated using the UV-based soft imprint technique which is simple and reproductive. The bulk sensitivity of fabricated interferometer sensor with a 5 mm sensing length is characterized using different mass concentration sodium chloride solutions. The sensitivity is obtained as 316 Πrad/RIU and the extinction ratio can reaches 18 dB.

A tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) hydrogen sensor coated with a palladium (Pd) membrane by the electroless plating method is proposed in this paper. A uniform layer of Pd metal is fabricated in aqueous solutions by the chemical coating method, which is used as the sensitive element to detect the change of the surrounding refractive index (SRI) caused by hydrogen absorption. The change in SRI causes an unsynchronized change of the cladding modes and the Bragg peak in the TFBG transmission spectrum, thereby eliminating the cross-sensitivity due to membrane expansion and is able to simultaneously monitor the presence of cracks in the pipe, as well as the hydrogen leakage. By subtracting the wavelength shift caused by fiber expansion, the change of SRI, i.e., the information from the H₂ level, can be separately obtained. The drifted wavelength is measured for the H₂ concentration below the hydrogen explosion limit between 1% and 4%. The chemical-based coating has the advantages of a low cost, a simple operation, and being suitable for coating on long fiber structures. The proposed sensor is able to detect the H₂ signal in 5 min at a 1% H₂ concentration. The proposed sensor is proved to be able to monitor the hydrogen level without the cross-sensitivity of temperature variation and expansion strains, so could be a good candidate for security applications in industry.