Patent ID: 6875561

Claim:
A method for making a polymer-based waveguide device, the method comprising the steps of: providing a substrate; spin coating a polymer bottom cladding layer on said substrate; spin coating a core layer on the bottom cladding layer, the core layer comprising a combination of a polymer and a quantity of rare earth ion complexes, each rare earth ion complex comprising an organic compound and a rare earth ion that can be excited to produce a laser; channel patterning using radiation through a mask, and etching, to form at least one channel waveguide in the core layer; and spin coating a polymer top cladding layer to cover the at least one channel waveguide; wherein the combination of the polymer and the quantity of rare earth ion complexes is prepared by dissolving an organic compound having a polydentate cage structure enclosing rare earth metal ions in the polymer, the rare earth metal ions being selected from the group consisting of samarium, cerium, and gadolinium; wherein the organic compound having the polydentate case structure is a crown ether.