Planar and ridge waveguides formed by proton implantation and femtosecond laser ablation in fused silica

Abstract

This work reports on the fabrication of optical planar and ridge waveguides in the fused silica glass by combining the proton implantation and the femtosecond laser ablation. The conditions for the ion implantation are an energy of 400 keV and a fluence of 8 × 1016 ions/cm2. The experimental parameters of the femtosecond laser ablation are a pulse energy of 5.0 mW and a scanning speed of 200 μm/s. The nuclear energy loss of the implanted hydrogen ions was derived by using the SRIM 2013 code. The optical properties of fabricated optical waveguides were studied by using the prism coupling method (at 632.8 nm) and the reflectivity calculation method. The light intensity distribution of the ridge waveguide at 976 nm was experimentally measured to validate its effect on two dimensions confinement.