Refractive index and dispersion of highly fluorinated acrylic monomers in the 1.5 µm telecom wavelength region measured with a spectroscopic Abbe refractometer

Fluorinated polymers are very promising for integrated optics devices due to their high transparency in all three telecom wavelength regions around 0.85, 1.3 and 1.5 µm. Knowledge of the refractive index n λ and dispersion dn λ /dλ of these materials as a function of wavelength λ is necessary for fabricating polymer waveguides with a well-defined numerical aperture and group velocity dispersion in the above-mentioned spectral regions. We present a high resolution critical angle spectroscopic refractometer for measuring n λ and d n λ /dλ of liquid and solid samples in the 0.95–1.65 µm wavelength range. The device is based on extensions to a standard Abbe refractometer. The absolute accuracy of the spectroscopic refractometer in the near-IR equals ±2 × 10 −4 , the measurement range at 1.5 µm being n λ = 1.08–1.65. Finally, refractive index data in the 1.5 µm telecom wavelength region are given for a number of new highly fluorinated acrylic monomers, which have previously not been investigated to the best of our knowledge.