Investigation of optical waveguide formed in Er:Yb:phosphate glass by MeV He + implantation
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Ying Zhou Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, People’s Republic of China (Received 3 August 2000; accepted 29 January 2001)
Planar waveguide was fabricated in Er:Yb:phosphate glass by a single energy implantation of 2.5 MeV He+ at a dose of 1.6 × 1016 ions/cm2. The waveguide was characterized by prism coupling method, and the refractive index profile was reconstructed using the inverse Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin method. The photoluminescence was also measured. The energy loss was simulated, and the results were compared and discussed with respect to the refractive index profile in the waveguide.
I. INTRODUCTION
Most of the optical communication systems operating at 1.5 m region require efficient amplifiers to enable long haul communication. Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) can provide the active medium for light generation and amplification with low noise. Numerous research papers published on EDFAs have demonstrated1–3 their successes and thus stimulated the development of integrated amplifiers that provide higher gain within a short length. Allowing integration with other optoelectronic devices, erbium-doped integrated optical waveguides are of suitable for manufacturing hybrid integrated optical circuits, and have attracted significant attention in the fabrication of amplifiers at 1.55 m for optical fiber communication. Silica-based glasses are frequently adopted as the host for rare-earth ions.4,5 However, low dopant concentration of rare-earth ions limits the performance of the amplifier.6 Phosphate glass is chosen as another host, which can accept higher rare-earth concentration. It is recognized as the best host for rare-earth in term of the spectroscopic characteristics.7 Unlike silicabased glasses, as a weak interaction among rare-earth ions prevents the cooperative upconversion effect in the large dopant concentration,8 it is possible to achieve the high gain within the short length of the waveguide.9,10 Several different techniques have been used to produce Er-doped integrated optics devices. Ti-diffusion11 and proton exchange12 were employed to fabricate Er-
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e-mail: [email protected] J. Mater. Res., Vol. 16, No. 4, Apr 2001
doped lithium niobate amplifiers, and silver ion exchange13 was widely used to make Er-doped glass devices due to its simplicity and low cost. In another case, ion implantation was also adopted to form waveguide structure by implanting light ions inside the glass. Compared to the ion exchange method, ion implantation has its own unique advantages. The main feature is that a low index optical layer can be formed at a controlled depth beneath the surface by specifying the implanted ion energy. In the past few years, He ion implantation has been successfully demonstrated in waveguide formation in KTiOPO414 and LiNbO3.15 In this paper, we report the first fabrication and characterization of waveguide in Er:Yb:optical phosphate glass by He+ implantation. The refractive index profile and the guiding properties were investigated by prism coupling method. The implanted
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