1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a production method for an optical waveguide device which is widely used for optical communications, optical information processing and other general optics, an optical waveguide device produced by the method, and an optical waveguide connection structure to be used for the device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical waveguide devices are generally configured such that light emitted from a light emitting element is transmitted through an optical waveguide or the light transmitted through the optical waveguide is received by a light receiving element for optical coupling. It is important to align the optical axis of the optical waveguide with the optical axis of the light emitting element or the light receiving element for the coupling. This requires high positioning accuracy. Recently, an optical waveguide device (optical module) having a receptacle structure which facilitates the positioning has been proposed. This optical module is generally used for optical communications (see JP-A-2006-154553).
For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the optical module disclosed in JP-A-2006-154553 includes a board 2 mounted with an optical element 1 such as a surface emitting element, and a receptacle which is capable of positioning a flexible optical waveguide 3 with respect to the optical element 1 with the optical axes of the flexible optical waveguide and the optical element 1 aligned with each other.
The receptacle includes a first receptacle 6 and a second receptacle 8 respectively having a lower groove 5 and an upper groove 7 which cooperatively serve as a guide for positioning the flexible optical waveguide 3. The first receptacle 6 and the second receptacle 8 are unitarily combined with each other by bringing guide pins 9 and 10 projecting upright from an upper surface of the board 2 into engagement with guide holes 11 and 12 formed in lower surfaces of the first and second receptacles 6 and 8, respectively.
However, the production of the receptacle structure of the optical module requires a complicated process including the steps of preparing the first receptacle 6 and the second receptacle 8, and combining these two components with each other on the board 2. Further, the optical element 1 and the flexible optical waveguide 3 are positioned with respect to each other via the combined receptacle structure, so that the overall accuracy is dependent upon the cumulative processing errors and the cumulative assembling errors of the respective components. This makes it difficult to control the accuracy.