Guided self-assembly of integrated hollow Bragg waveguides

We describe the fabrication of integrated hollow waveguides through guided self-assembly of straight-sided, thin film delamination buckles within a multilayer system of chalcogenide glass and polymer. The process is based on silver photodoping, which was used to control both the stress and adhesion of the chalcogenide glass films. Straight, curved, crossing, and tapered microchannels were realized in parallel. The channels are cladded by omnidirectional dielectric reflectors designed for low-loss, air-core guiding of light in the 1550-1700 nm wavelength range. Loss as low as ~15 dB/cm was measured for channels of height ~2.5 mum, in good agreement with both an analytical ray optics model and finite difference numerical simulations. The loss is determined mainly by the reflectivity of the cladding mirrors, which is ~0.995 for the as-fabricated devices.