Low loss deep glass waveguides produced with dry silver electromigration process

Abstract

We report a simple but effective technology adopted to fabricate low-loss channel waveguides on a specially chosen glass substrate code name SBS450 without the presence of molten chemicals or liquid solutions. This technique encompasses a dry ion electromigration process that totally eliminate the needs of evaporating separate gold or aluminum film electrodes onto both sides of glass. In contrast to earlier ion exchange waveguides reported, a relatively high electrical field of 545 V/mm was applied to the glass to speed up the electromigration process and most important of all, to prevent silver ions that were driven into the glass from reducing into silver atom, a major contributor to waveguide loss. The channel waveguides thus fabricated showed no discolors or cracks, while the attenuation losses were later measured to be less than 0.2 dB/cm, using our 0.6328 /spl mu/m He-Ne laser edge-coupling setup.