Multipurpose Polymer Bragg Grating-Based Optomechanical Sensor Pad.

Flexible epoxy waveguide Bragg gratings are fabricated on a low-modulus TPX™ polymethylpentene polyolefin substrate for an easy to manufacture and low-cost optomechanical sensor pad providing exceedingly multipurpose application potentials. Rectangular EpoCore negative resist strip waveguides are formed employing standard UV mask lithography. Highly persistent Bragg gratings are inscribed directly into the channel waveguides by permanently modifying the local refractive indices through a well-defined KrF excimer laser irradiated +1/-1 order phase mask.