Direct laser writing of low loss waveguide with independent control over the transverse dimension and the refractive index contrast between the core and the cladding

Pascal Masselin (1) , Eugène Bychkov (1) , David Le Coq (2)

1 LPCA - Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie de l'Atmosphère
2 ISCR - Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes

In this Letter, we present the realization of a low-loss wave- guide in a chalcogenide glass by direct laser writing technique in a particular configuration that allows the independent control over the diameter of the core and the magnitude of the refractive index contrast with the cladding. The wave- guide is of multicore type and composed of 19 channels arranged on a hexagonal lattice. Each channel is obtained by stacking voxels of refractive index variation obtained by static exposure to femtosecond laser pulse burst. The distance between the channels can be used to vary the diameter of the waveguide, while the duration of laser burst controls the magnitude of the effective index and the propagation loss. We demonstrate that it can be reduced down to 0.11 dB/cm

Mots clés: Integrated optics; Waveguides; Glass waveguides; Laser materials processing; Glass and other amorphous materials

Domaines: Optique / photonique; Matériaux

Pascal Masselin, Eugène Bychkov, David Le Coq. Direct laser writing of low loss waveguide with independent control over the transverse dimension and the refractive index contrast between the core and the cladding. Optics Letters, 2016, 41 (15), pp.3507. ⟨10.1364/OL.41.003507⟩. ⟨hal-01426886⟩