Novel silicone materials for LED packaging and opto-electronics devices

Silicone based materials have attracted considerable attention from Light Emitting Diode (LED) manufacturers. In LEDs, silicones can function in several roles that include optical lenses, stress relieving encapsulants, mechanical protection and light path materials. The key attributes of silicones that make them attractive materials for high brightness (HB) LEDs include their excellent transparency in the UV-visible region, their non-discoloring behavior and their stable thermo-mechanical properties. The first part of this paper/presentation will describe recent silicone materials development efforts directed towards providing LED manufacturers with silicone materials solutions for LED device fabrication. Injection molding of novel silicone resin based materials will be discussed as a viable route for high throughput LED device manufacturing. For other portions of the light spectrum, specifically at telecom wavelengths, the performances of silicone based materials are also verified and this makes them attractive materials for numerous photonics device applications. The second part of this paper/presentation will describe recent demonstrations of siloxane for use as waveguides for datacom and telecom applications. A Variable Optical Attenuator (VOA) utilizing silicone based waveguides (exploiting dn/dT property) and an Optical Backplane built from silicone waveguides and out-of-plane mirrors built on glass and FR-4 substrates are discussed.