The Photochemical Generation of Planar Waveguides in Sol-Gel Glasses

9361852门多萨集成光学技术前景的商业实现取决于建立一种成本效益高、可靠的方法来制造薄膜格式的有源和无源波导结构。物理光学公司(POC)建议研究一种新的光刻技术的开发，该技术使用常见的材料和直接的工艺，在二氧化硅基溶胶-凝胶薄膜中同时生产有源和无源波导。该技术提供了将高达0.1的永久折射率变化“写入”到二氧化硅基质中的可能性。此外，同样的技术可以用来制造折射率和透射率具有非线性的光波导。在提议的第一阶段工作中，POC将通过使用该技术在单个玻璃基板上生成平面波导、通道波导和有源和无源器件(如分路器、组合器、定向耦合器和Mach-Zender干涉仪)的示例来证明该技术的实用性。***

9361852 Mendoza The commercial realization of the promise of integrated optics technology depends on the establishment of a cost-effective, reliable method of fabricating active and passive waveguiding structures in a thin film format. Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to investigate the development of a novel photolithographic technique that uses commonly available materials, and straightforward processing, to produce both active and passive waveguides in silica-based sol-gel films. The proposed technique offers the possibility of "writing" permanent index variations of up to 0.1 into the silica matrix. Furthermore, the same technique can be used to produce waveguides with nonlinearities in refractive index and transmissivity. During the proposed Phase I effort, POC will prove the practicality of this technique by using it to generate examples of planar waveguides, channel waveguides, and active and passive devices such as splitters, combiners, directional couplers, and Mach-Zender interferometers on a single glass substrate. ***