Abstract

Antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides (ARROWs)¹ have previously been implemented on silicon and InP substrates by forming optical layers of fixed thicknesses. We have built a hollow-core ARROW waveguide by holding two 1.5 µm thick plastic pellicles 20-30µm apart. The pellicles were flat and were aligned parallel to one another and to a flat glass substrate held next to one of the pellicles at a distance that could can be continuously varied from 15–500µm by means of a computer-controlled micropositionner. Light from a 1300 nm laser was injected into the air gap between the pellicules, and it excited predominantly the lowest-order modes of the ARROW waveguide. Laser power emerging from the waveguide exhibited loss resonances as the substrate was gradually moved from 15 to 500µm away.

© 1990 Optical Society of America