Can OC GuideLink™ tolerate solder re-flow temperatures without impairment to the optical circuits?
• OC GuideLink™ has been subjected to standard IR solder re-flow operation specifications (30 second dwell at 250C) without degradation in performance. Testing has been done up to 300C for short time periods before any optically observable damage. • Practical limitations of polymer waveguides (high loss, sensitivities to temperature, degradation over time, high crosstalk, polarization sensitivity) pervade the photonics industry. What’s different about the OC GuideLink™? • While it is true that polymers have higher loss than glass fiber, especially at the longer wavelengths used in telecom (1550 nm), again the parameter to be measured should be the entire system loss. Highly integrated OC GuideLink™ waveguides can be quite short (on the order of a few millimeters to centimeters) therefore the entire system loss is often less than the system it is displacing. OXL has developed packaging techniques to eliminate the absorption of water vapor which comprises most of the environm