PHOTOREFRACTIVE DAMAGE REMOVAL IN ANNEALED-PROTON-EXCHANGED LINBO3 CHANNEL WAVE-GUIDES

Ion beam implantation has been used as a postprocessing technique to d ramatically reduce the photorefractive effect in lithium niobate chann el waveguides. The waveguides were fabricated by proton exchange and t hen annealed 1.0 MeV H+ ions were implanted through the existing chann el waveguides such that the ''damaged layer'' was created beneath the existing channel waveguide. The output characteristics from the wavegu ides were subsequently examined. Highly stable single-mode outputs wer e observed with the waveguides retaining up to 95% of their original t ransmission. It is thought that this decrease in photorefractive susce ptibility can be explained by the implant changing the defect structur e and hence photovoltaic properties of the material. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.