WRITING WAVE-GUIDES IN SILICA-RELATED GLASSES WITH FEMTOSECOND LASER

Permanent optical waveguides could be written in bulk glasses with a 8 00 nm, 120 fs, 200 kHz laser beam. The writing of waveguides (damage l ines) were carried out by translating the sample parallel to axis of t he laser beam. By focusing the laser beam via a microscope objective d amage lines which are stable at room temperature and visible under mic roscope magnification were produced with an increase of refractive ind ex change of 0.04. For several damage lines, the near and far field pa ttern were, observed. From mode profiles of several patterns, it was c onfirmed the damage lines were employed as an optical waveguide. This new technique gives possibilities in the field of integrated optics, e specially for the conception of compact, all-solid-state laser, amplif iers and optical switches.