Abstract

Conventional evanescent optical devices have made use of etched windows to allow access of an optical field to a material of interest. Such devices are a route to accurate refractive index sensors and to realising modulators, however, the geometry of etching the cladding to give the fluid access to a pre-defined core waveguide mode is limiting. In this work, we present an alternative approach in which a groove is cut using a polishing saw blade to give a vertical, high optical quality trench. Optical waveguides are then UV written to allow evanescent lateral access of the mode to a fluid placed in the trench. This seemingly subtle change in geometry provides greatly increased flexibility to tailor the interaction between the optical mode and the surrounding material, by, for example, changing the mode size and the allowing couplers or tapers to be used.

© 2007 IEEE