Tellurite glass thin films on silica and polymer using UV (193 nm) pulsed laser ablation

Abstract

Erbium doped tellurite glass thin films were deposited using excimer (193 nm) laser ablation onto two different types of substrates: silica and polymer-coated silica for engineering optical integrated active-passive devices. The deposition conditions were optimized for both substrates in order to produce high quality rare-earth (Er 3+ ) ion doped glass thin films with low propagation loss. The optical and spectroscopic properties of the deposited films, namely transmittance, fluorescence, lifetime as well as refractive indices at 633 nm were measured and analyzed in detail.

Photonic waveguide engineering using pulsed lasers — A novel approach for non-clean room fabrication!

“…In the context of thin film fabrication, both the standard excimer at 193nm and 800nm Ti-sapphire lasers, pulsed in nano and femto second regimes, respectively were used [3][4][5]. The pulse width and repetition rates of excimer and Ti-sapphire lasers were in sub s and 1-20Hz and 100fs and 250-1KHz, respectively.…”

High‐Performance Integrated Optics with Tellurite Glasses: Status and Prospects

“…Work is also progressing on pulsed laser deposition, which has considerable potential because of the ability to achieve accurate stoichiometry transfer of bulk glass targets, giving it the ability to use glasses not so easily synthesized by reactive sputtering. The current benchmark for PLD tellurite films was a recent demonstration of multicomponent glass film deposited at 193 nm with loses of 0.1 dB/cm at 633 nm, indicating high‐quality films can be achieved . Further development is, however, required to attain large‐area uniform films with this technique, although this has been achieved in other glasses with ultrashort pulses …”

Erbium‐Ion‐Doped Tellurite Glass Fibers and Waveguides—Devices and Future Prospective: Part II

“…For thin film waveguides, two different types of tellurite glasses were developed which can dissolve high concentrations of RE‐ions. These two glasses are as follows: phosphate modified tellurite (PT), discussed previously for laser inscribed EDWAs, and tungsten‐lanthanum‐tellurite (TWL) glasses that are known to dissolve several mole percent of La 2 O 3 and LaF 3 . Also for device integration including pump sources, it is essential to consider two different types of substrates:…”