Optical waveguides formed by carbon implantation on SiO2

Abstract

The formation of planar optical waveguides by the implantation of carbon ions on fused quartz (SiO 2 ) is presented. The implantation was performed at normal incidence by carbon ions accelerated at energies between 3 – 9 MeV, varying the fluences from 1.0×10 14 to 2.3×10 16 ions/cm 2 . The changes of the refractive index in the host were studied by the m-line method. With this method the effective refractive indices of the dark modes of the waveguides were measured, and then a refractive index profile was adjusted to fit the experimental indices. A refractive index enhancement was found in both regions dominated by the ion electronic stopping and nuclear stopping regimes. This indicates that the damage region created is surrounded by two zones with lower refractive index and can acts as a conventional planar optical waveguide. The dependence of the refractive index profiles respects to the implantation parameters like energy, fluence and current density, is also presented.