Preparation and structure investigation of AgI thin films in the silica capillary with a liquid phase deposition technique

Abstract

A metal (Ag)/dielectric (AgI) hollow glass waveguide is an attractive and flexible for easy handling mid-IR fiber used in the systems of Er:YAG lasers and high-power CO2 lasers radiation transmission. The quality of AgI thin films is one of the key factors, which greatly influence on the attenuation of waveguides. In this paper, with a liquid- phase deposition technique AgI thin films were successfully fabricated in the silica capillary, whose inner diameter was 0.53 mm. By means of XRD, AFM and AES, the process of iodination and the structure of AgI thin films were firstly investigated. It can be concluded that the AgI phase in the AgI films was a mixture of (beta) -AgI and (gamma) -AgI which converts slowly to (beta) -AgI in the iodination process. And the interface of AgI film, Ag film, and substrate is obviously distinguished and the thickness of AgI films can be measured directly about 0.625 micrometers .© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.