Abstract
By tightly focusing laser pulses from a Ti:sapphire oscillator with pulse energy at repetition rate, we are able to fabricate optical waveguides inside hydrogel polymers containing water by weight. A tapered lensed fiber is used to couple laser light at a wavelength of into these waveguides within a water environment. Strong waveguiding is observed due to large refractive index changes. A large waveguide propagation loss is found, and we show that this is caused by surface roughness which can be reduced by optimizing the waveguides.
© 2008 Optical Society of America
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