Photorefractive integrated-optical switch arrays in LiNbO_3

Abstract

A new optical switch design is reported that consists of two sets of parallel channel waveguides intersecting at right angles. Arrays based on Ti:LiNbO(3) technology, with waveguide intersections iron doped to provide photorefractive sensitivity, have been fabricated. Interfering guided beams are used to write index gratings at the waveguide intersections, which in turn diffract a portion of an incident signal beam into the crossing waveguide. Arrays ranging from 15 x 15 up to 50 x 50 waveguides are constructed in an active area of 5 mm x 5 mm. Diffraction efficiency and writing-time measurements are reported along with a proposal for a practical architecture.

Pulsed laser deposition of /MgO bilayered films on Si wafer in waveguide form

“…Sr x Ba 1−x Nb 2 O 6 /MgO (0.25 ≤ x ≤ 0.75) has received a great deal of attention due to its potential applications in electro-optics [1][2][3], holographic storage [4], spatial light modulators, pyroelectric detectors [5], surface acoustic wave (SAW) [6,7] devices and beam steering [8]. The electro-optic and pyroelectric coefficients of bulk tetragonal Sr x Ba 1−x Nb 2 O 6 are higher than those of other well known ferroelectric materials, and SBN is strongly photorefractive [9,10].…”

Growth of epitaxial strontium barium niobate thin films by pulsed laser deposition

“…Sr x Ba 1Ϫx Nb 2 O 6 ͑SBN͒ is an attractive material for many applications such as electro-optic modulators, holographic storage, 1 and beam steering. 2 Bulk SBN has an extremely high electro-optic coefficient 3 and is strongly photorefractive. 4 Its figure of merit for photorefractive applications is more than 50 times higher than that of LiNbO 3 offering the possibility of much smaller devices.…”

Influence of iron doping on spatial soliton formation and fixing in lithium niobate crystals

“…Most recent results concerns the realization of photorefractive optical waveguides in Fe:LN by ion implantation [14]. Using these configurations, the first demonstrators of optical interconnections integrated optical circuits and sensors with a holographic stage have been already reported [15][16][17][18][19][20]. The main limitation of these optical processing schemes is that their full potential is nowadays difficult to miniaturize and integrate in a http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optmat.2014.05.020 0925-3467/Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.…”