A new design scheme for a polymeric waveguide thermo-optic beam deflector is presented and experimentally demonstrated. The refractive indices of the waveguide materials can be thermally tuned by applying electric current through a metal thin film electrode deposited and patterned using standard lithography on top of the waveguide. In doing so, the geometry of the electrode determines the performance and reliability of the beam deflector. We form a pair of heating electrodes sitting opposite to each other like interlocked sawteeth that have a folded-thin-strip substructure, and hence demonstrate an advanced beam deflector that has biangular sweeping capability, low power consumption, less wavefront distortion, and high reliability. A full sweep angle of 56.5 mrad (3.24 deg) and 1×8 switching capability at a 1550 nm wavelength are attained with an average power consumption of 247 mW per switching between adjacent resolvable spots. Switching from the zero-bias spot to the first resolvable spot exhibits a response time of 2 ms in both rising and falling.
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