Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) technology has been considered as a promising route to integrate a greater number of channels and more optical functionalities onto a small foot print, enabling smaller device sizes and lower costs of manufacturing by using existing semiconductor process technologies. Among several planar technology platforms, silica-on-silicon technology comprised of a silica higher index core and lower index clad has taken the lead in this direction. One of the major advantages of silica based PLC technology is its relative ease to couple to a single mode silica fiber because of a close match of the index and dimensions of the waveguide core of planar chip and fiber. In this structure, to completely confine and guide light signals, the silica layer stack, including lower clad, core and top clad can be as thick as 20 -40 microns, in which the core layer thickness is around 6 -8 micron. This has presented a major challenge to several major silica film deposition technologies including CVD, FHD, PVD, and Sol-Gel processes. In addition to basic requirements for optical quality of the glass film, low cost manufacture also demands a high deposition rate to reduce process costs in the fabrication of these planar chips. In this paper, we present a high throughput and planar glass coating technology to lay down doped and undoped glass films at a unprecedented rates. The technology is comprised of a laser reactive deposition (LRD TM ) process developed based on our nanoscale particle manufacture (NPM TM ) methods pioneered by NanoGram Corporation. We report results on planar glass films deposited using this technology and describe the concepts employed using this technology in manufacturing. Furthermore, we will compare it with various existing glass film deposition technologies.

The combination of organic and inorganic materials forms unique composites with properties that neither of the two components provides. Such functional materials are considered innovative advanced materials that enable applications in many fields, including optics, electronics, separation membranes, protective coatings, catalysis, sensors, biotechnology, and others. The challenge of incorporating inorganic particles into an organic matrix still remains today, especially for nanoparticles, due to the difficulties in their dispersion, de-agglomeration and surface modification. NanoGram has pioneered a nanomaterials synthesis technology based on laser pyrolysis process to produce a wide range of crystalline nanomaterials including complex metal oxides, nitrides and sulfides and with precisely controlled compositions, crystal structure, particle size and size distributions. In this paper we will present some examples of nanocomposites prepared using different polymer host materials and phase-pure rutile TiO2. The inorganic component can be dispersed at higher 50 weight percent into the polymer matrix. We have demonstrated a 0.2–0.3 increase of refractive index in the composite over that of host polymer while maintaining high optical transparency. These nanocomposites can be used in a range of applications or optical devices, such as planar waveguides, flat panel displays, optical sensors, high-brightness LEDs, diffraction gratings and optical data storage. Experimental data on TiO2 nanoparticle characterization, dispersion technique, surface modification and will be presented and nanocomposite properties discussed.

Current development of optical network component devices has increased demand for various optical and optoelectronic materials for a wide range of applications such as switches, waveguides, amplifiers, Bragg gratings, splitters, isolators circulators, lasers and detectors. Furthermore, low cost manufacture of component devices demands higher and higher integration of individual components onto a small, planar foot print. One of the major issues with optical integration is that various optical functionalities come from materials with different compositions. As a result, it is highly desirable to have a means to produce high quality optical materials with various compositions, and to deposit them onto a common substrate. We present in this paper a novel nanoscale materials synthesis method to produce optical materials in nanoscale particulate form, which can subsequently deposited onto a substrate at a high deposition rate. Further treatment of these materials on the substrate can be used to transform these nanoscale particle building block into dense solids to achieve optical functional properties such as optical transparency, amplification or UV sensitivity.

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