Abstract

In another paper we have reported ion-exchanged glass waveguides with submicrometer etched gratings. In this paper, we report on the fabrication and characterization of ion-exchanged waveguides with ion-exchanged gratings. A two-step process is used to make these components. First, potassium-ion exchange is employed to produce the channel waveguides. Second, silver-ion exchange is used to fabricate the submicrometer (0.4-0.5 μm) gratings. Two-layer photoresist processing and a holographic setup with a He:Cd laser are used to make the gratings. To determine the efficiency of the grating, light from a He:Ne laser is coupled into the waveguides, and the ratio of the power in the first-order diffracted waves to the guided power at the output of the waveguides is measured. This calculation yields a value of approximately 1% when the above pair of ion-exchange processes is used. The efficiency can be modulated by using other ion-exchange processes or by applying an electric field during ion exchange.

© 1990 Optical Society of America