No abstract

No abstract

By implanting protons into a cladding in the coupling region of a directional coupler of the planar-lightwave-circuit type at an acceleration energy that enables the protons to reach the center of the core, the coupling ratio of the coupler is changed periodically and continuously by increasing proton fluence. In the case of two optical waveguides formed in a planar lightwave circuit with a mutual spacing too large for optical coupling, proton implantation into the cladding between the waveguides induces optical coupling between them. These results indicate that the coupling ratio of a directional coupler can be controlled by ion implantation.

An optical fiber depolarizer was developed utilizing birefringence that was induced by ion implantation into a silica-core optical fiber. The implanted ions were protons, and their acceleration energy was chosen such that the protons reach only the center of the optical fiber core. To evaluate the depolarization effect, the degree of polarization was measured for various transmitted polarized lights with different polarization states. Several proton-implanted fibers were spliced, holding their slow axes at a mutual angle at which the degree of polarization was lowest. As a result, an optical fiber depolarizer that can reduce the degree of polarization of incident light up to 0:6 Â 10 À2 was obtained by splicing three ion-implanted optical fibers.

No abstract