Optical Ridge Waveguides in Magneto-Optical Glasses Fabricated by Combination of Silicon Ion Implantation and Femtosecond Laser Ablation

Abstract

Tb3+-doped aluminum borosilicate glass is a promising magneto-optical material that can be used to fabricate Faraday rotating devices. In this paper, we report the fabrication of an optical ridge waveguide structure in the Tb3+-doped aluminum borosilicate glass by using a combination of femtosecond laser ablation and ion implantation. The end-face microscopic photographs of the waveguide were acquired by the optical microscope. The effective refractive indices of the modes and near-field intensity distributions were measured by the prism-coupling and end-face coupling techniques. The distributions of energy loss, refractive index, and light intensity were simulated by the stopping and range of ions in matter 2013, reflectivity calculation method, and finite-difference beam propagation method. The results provide a new idea for the fabrication of waveguide-type magneto-optical isolators.

Keywords

• Optical ridge waveguide
• ion implantation
• femtosecond laser ablation.