Novel active waveguide devices in direct-bonded structures

This thesis describes a series of experimental studies on the use of direct bonding for optical waveguide fabrication. The direct bonding technique involves contacting two ultra-clean polished surfaces to form an adhesive-free vacuum-tight bond. Optical materials bonded in this way can be formed into waveguide devices, and this work extends direct bonding to include periodically poled materials and a new solid-state ion-exchange process. The first result of this work describes the fabrication of a 5.5-mm-long, 12-µm-thick periodically poled LiNbO3 planar waveguide buried in LiTaO3. Frequency doubling experiments performed with this device demonstrate a conversion efficiency of 4.3 %W-1, a value 40% greater than that calculated for an optimised bulk device of similar length.Also demonstrated is a photorefractive iron-doped LiNbO3 waveguide buried in non-photorefractive magnesium-doped LiNbO3. In optical limiting experiments this device demonstrates a change in optical density of 2 and photorefractive response time of 5 milliseconds, representing 20 times greater optical limiting and 60 times faster operational speed than the bulk material. K+-Na+ ion-exchange between direct-bonded glass layers is studied and used as a novel solid-state technique for waveguide fabrication. This process is also developed to incorporate direct-UV-written channel waveguides in an ion-exchanged buried photosensitive glass layer. Finally, operation of a single-mode channel waveguide laser in neodymium-doped photosensitive SGBN glass (based on a composition of silica, germania, boron, and sodium) is demonstrated, with propagation losses of < 0.3 dB cm-1 and milliwatt-order lasing thresholds.