Fabrication and optical properties of the oxygen-ion implanted waveguides in Er 3+ -doped germanate glasses

Abstract

In this work, the planar optical waveguide on the Er3+-doped germanate glass was fabricated by the oxygen ion implantation with the energy of 6.0 MeV and the fluence of 5×1014 ions/cm2. The waveguide was characterized with the techniques of the m-line setup and the near-field pattern. The waveguide shows guided-mode propagation at a wavelength of 632.8 nm. The formation theory of the planar waveguide was discussed through simulating the energy loss distribution and analyzing the reconstructed refractive index profile. The ion implantation results in around 4.8 µm thickness of higher refractive index layer to guide light as a waveguide core in the Er3+-doped germanate glass, which could be used for applications in future integrated optical systems.