Abstract

In recent years there has been a considerable research effort directed towards the process and applications of the UV induced refractive index change in germanosilicate glasses. Most of the germanium doped planar structures reported in previous work were formed by flame hydrolysis and need to be hydrogen loaded for up to 2 weeks [1] to become reasonably photosensitive. An alternative deposition technique, which is able to produce photosensitive films without hydrogen loading is Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD). A UV induced refractive index change of 0.0025 has been reported for germanium doped PECVD silica films without use of hydrogen loading [2].

© 1995 Optical Society of America