Low-loss erbium-doped ion-exchanged channel waveguides

We report the fabrication of ion-exchanged channel waveguides in an Er-doped Na-modified BK-7 glass. The buried waveguides were elliptical in cross section, having approximate cross-sectional dimensions of 10 microm x 30 microm. Characterization of the optical properties of the waveguides revealed that they are single mode in the 10-microm dimension and multimode in the 30-microm dimension and exhibit a total waveguide loss, absorption plus scattering, of 0.8 dB/cm at 0.633 microm.