Back to results
US 6,160,944 AGranted
Optical waveguide device
AssigneeUniversity of Southampton
InventorsDavid Neil Payne, Liang Dong, Jose Luis Cruz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Tin-doped photosensitive optical glass is disclosed, together with applications of the glass in fabricating waveguides and waveguide devices such as Bragg gratings.
Claims21
An optical waveguide device comprising:
- an optical waveguide formed at least in part of photosensitive optical glass;
- and
- a refractive index variation optically impressed on the photosensitive optical glass of the waveguide by exposure of regions of the photosensitive optical glass to a refractive index-varying optical radiation,
- characterised in that the photosensitive optical glass is doped with tin as a photosensitising dopant.
1 more element
A method of fabricating an optical waveguide, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing a photosensitive optical glass which has been doped with tin as a photosensitizing dopant;
- and
- exposing regions of the tin-doped photosensitive optical glass to refractive index change-inducing optical radiation, the exposed regions providing a light-guiding core of raised refractive index within the tin-doped photosensitive optical glass.
A process for increasing the sensitivity of optical glass to light-induced refractive index variation, the process comprising the steps of:
- doping the optical glass with tin for increasing the sensitivity of the optical glass to light-induced refractive index variation;
- and
- exposing regions of the tin-doped photosensitive optical glass to refractive index-varying optical radiation to vary the refractive index of the exposed regions of the tin-doped photosensitive optical glass.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.