Reduction Of The Effects Of Scattering By Laser Annealing Of Optical Waveguides And By Use Of Integrated Waveguide Detection

Abstract

The use of laser annealing with a CO2 laser to improve the quality of both Corning 7059 and phosphosilicate glass thin-film optical waveguides will be described. Dark field photomicrographs taken before and after laser annealing imply that both surface and bulk defects are removed by laser annealing. Waveguide attenuation is typically measured to be on the order of 10 dB/cm before laser annealing, while after laser annealing values significantly lower than .1 dB/cm have been measured. We shall discuss the integration of a photodetector array and the optical waveguide structure, and the fact that for such a structure less scattering reaches adjacent array elements than when these two structures are not integrated. The dynamic range of the integrated optical signal process of interest would thus be expected to be greater for the integrated configuration.© (1981) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.