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Updated: Aug 30, 2025
Fabrication And Characterization Of Photonic Crystal Slow Light Waveguides And Cavities
Published on: November 30, 2012
Ultrafast laser inscribed waveguides in tailored fluoride glasses: an enabling technology for mid-infrared integrated
Toney T Fernandez1, B Johnston2, S Gross2
1MQ Photonics Research Centre, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia. toney.teddyfernandez@mq.edu.au.
Abstract:
Zirconium fluoride (ZBLAN) glass, the standard material used in fiber-based mid-infrared photonics, has been re-designed to enable the fabrication of high index-contrast low-loss waveguides via femtosecond laser direct writing. We demonstrate that in contrast to pure ZBLAN, a positive index change of close to 10-2 can be induced in hybrid zirconium/hafnium (Z/HBLAN) glasses during ultrafast laser inscription and show that this can be explained by an electron cloud distortion effect that is driven by the existence of two glass formers with contrasting polarizability. High numerical aperture (NA) type-I waveguides that support a well confined 3.1 μm wavelength mode with a mode-field diameter (MFD) as small as 12 μm have successfully been fabricated. These findings open the door for the fabrication of mid-infrared integrated photonic devices that can readily be pigtailed to existing ZBLAN fibers.
