Variable optical attenuator fabricated by direct uv writing

Abstract

Abstract-It is demonstrated that direct ultraviolet writing of waveguides is a method suitable for mass production of compact variable optical attenuators with low insertion loss, low polarization-dependent loss, and high dynamic range. The fabrication setup is shown to be robust, providing good device performance over a period of many months without maintenance.

Fabrication of 2 /spl times/ 8 power splitters in silica-on-silicon by the direct UV writing technique

“…The experimental setup is similar to that used in earlier work [3], except for the fact that the scanning accuracy has recently been improved by means of interferometric position feedback [6]. The UV beam has a wavelength of 257 nm and may be blocked using a shutter as required in the scanning process.…”

“…In this technique, waveguides are written directly into a photosensitive glass sample with a focused UV laser, thereby avoiding expensive photolithographic and etching-based fabrication steps. Up to date, the only demonstration of a commercially interesting UV written device is a variable optical attenuator [3], which has a limited complexity of the layout. In this letter, the development of compact, low loss, uniform, and broad-band 2 8 optical splitters by means of direct UV writing is reported.…”

Direct UV-Written Integrated Optical Beam Combiner for Stellar Interferometry

“…Direct UV writing [5] is a fabrication technique, where highperformance waveguides are written directly into a planar glass sample with a focused UV laser beam; hence, it does not require photolithography and is well suited for rapid prototyping. The technology was originally developed for low-cost telecom applications such as variable optical attenuators [6]. Recently, UV writing has been employed for fabrication of devices with increased complexity, such as multichannel optical power splitters [7], [8] and broadband directional couplers [9].…”

UV-written Integrated Optical 1xN Splitters

“…This process avoids the use of costly photolithographic and etching based fabrication steps and does not require a cleanroom. We have previously shown that direct UV writing can be a stable platform for production of high performance components such as variable optical attenuators [2], return-to-zero signal generators [3] and broadband directional couplers [4].…”