Abstract

Corning Polarcor glasses contain submicron-size silver particles embedded in a soda-lime glass host. The elongated silver particles have their major axes oriented in a common direction. The glasses polarize light by selective absorption. The absorption is from surface plasmon excitation in the silver particles. Planar waveguides were fabricated by a K-Na ion exchange process. Singlemode guides at 836 nm were obtained from a potassium nitrate melt at 340 C with an exchange time of 31 h. TE and TM pass polarizers had measured extinction ratios >39 dB/mm at 836 nm with <1.5 dB/mm propagation loss for the pass axis. Using the bulk values for the dielectric response of silver, the effective dielectric tensor for the composite is calculated and the extinction ratio is determined.

© 1991 Optical Society of America