Wavelength division multiplexing technology can extend the potentiality of the fiber.Arrayed waveguide grating(AWG)which is based on a phased arrayed of bent optical waveguide

is one of the key devices of dense wavelength division multiplexing(DWDM)optical systems

because it offers multi-channel operation

design flexibility and suitability for mass production.This text described the fabrication of AWG in detail.Using the polymer materials to manufacture AWG

the refracting rate is apt to adjust

the fabrication process is simple and the price is cheap.For the moment

the technology of making waveguide with polymer materials conclude photo bleaching technology

laser scribe technology

ion implantation technology and reactive ion etching technology.The reactive ion etching technology don't depend on the material of waveguide.But there is high ion bombardment resulting in high physical damage and poor mask resistance.So the combined layer masks were used in the fabrication of the AWG to compensate the damage of the resist so that the shape and the size of waveguide is probably the same as the design.The combined layer masks are aluminium mask and photo resist.The aluminium is vaporised on the material of the core layer.And then the photo resist is formed by spin-coating.The rotate speed is 4 000 r/s for photo resist.The experiment was carried on mainly using MD-300B vacuum evaporation machine

JKG-3A photolithography machine and ME-2A ion etching machine.It gave the result that 100 nm is the best thickness for aluminium mask.The surface of waveguide became rough after RIE.It's not good for waveguide lose to change the parameters during RIE process.So the steam remelting technology is used to modify the scatter lose which is due to the roughness of the surface of the waveguide.The root-mean-square roughness of surface of waveguide was reduced from 41.307 nm to 24.564 nm.The samples of AWG was tested

and the one with combined layer masks has the better property.