Femtosecond laser inscription of waveguides and Bragg gratings in transparent cyclic olefin copolymers

Optics Express
Gian-Luca RothR Hellmann

Abstract

We report on a femtosecond laser based fabrication technique that enables simultaneous single-step generation of optical waveguides and Bragg gratings inside bulk cyclic olefin copolymers. Due to the nonlinear absorption of focused and spatially modulated laser radiation with a wavelength of 514 nm and a pulse duration of 450 fs, a modification concluding a refractive index shift increase inside the substrate can be achieved. A sophisticated characterization of the generated waveguides by means of an elaborate cut-back method reveals a maximum attenuation of 3.2 dB/cm. Additionally, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used to examine the waveguide's refractive index profile. The integrated Bragg grating structures exhibit reflectivities up to 95 % and a spectral full width at half maximum of 288 pm, at a Bragg wavelength of 1582 nm, whereas the grating period can be deliberately chosen by adapting the fabrication parameters. Thus, due to its increased flexibility and the resulting dispensability of cost-intensive phase masks, this method constitutes an especially promising fabrication process for polymer Bragg gratings inside of bulk materials.

References

Sep 11, 2004·Optics Letters·Arnaud ZoubirKathleen Richardson
Mar 5, 2009·Optics Express·Matthias PospiechUwe Morgner
Jun 29, 2012·Optics Letters·Jason R GrenierPeter R Herman
Dec 25, 2012·Optics Express·M RosenbergerR Hellmann
Mar 26, 2014·Optics Express·M RosenbergerR Hellmann
Feb 3, 2016·Optics Express·Sergei AntipovAlexander Fuerbach
Mar 16, 2016·Optics Letters·Welm M PätzoldUwe Morgner
Jul 15, 2016·Optics Express·Maiko GirschikofskyRalf Hellmann
Aug 10, 2017·Optics Express·Gian-Luca RothRalf Hellmann
Jul 13, 2017·Micromachines·Bence HorváthLóránd Kelemen

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