Potential Applications of Implanted Fused Silica as a Photosensitive Material for Planar Lightwave Circuits

Abstract

Fused silica is used extensively as a material for optical devices and waveguides. Current optical fibers for communication applications are made of doped silica and planar optical lightwave circuits of similar composition are being developed. With the deployment of communication systems using these components, the need is growing for sophisticated optical signal processing devices. In recent years, a procedure has been developed to fabricate such devices by a photoimprinting technique based on the discovery that refractive index of certain doped silica glasses can be modified permanently by exposure to ultraviolet light.¹