Liquid-Phase Epitaxial Growth and Characterization of Nd:YAl₃(BO₃)₄ Optical Waveguides

Abstract

We investigated the fabrication of neodymium doped thin film optical waveguide-based devices as potential active sources for planar integrated optics. Liquid-phase epitaxial growth was used to fabricate neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum borate films on compatible lattice-matched, un-doped yttrium aluminum borate substrates. We observed the refractive index contrast of the doped and un-doped crystal layers via differential interference contrast microscopy. In addition, characterization by X-ray powder diffraction, optical absorption and luminescence spectra demonstrated the crystal quality, uniformity and optical guiding of the resulting thin films.

Keywords

• thin film crystal growth
• epitaxial layer growth
• multifunctional borate crystals
• planar optical waveguides