Article comprising a planar optical waveguide with optically non-linear core

Abstract

Waveguides according to this invention have a chalcogenide glass core that comprises Se and one or both of As and Ge, and further comprises one or more dopant elements selected from the elements that cause a change in optical energy gap Eg of the glass core. The amount of dopant is selected such that Eg is equal to or less than a 2-photon energy 2hν, where h is Planck's constant and ν=c/λ, where c is the speed of light in vacuum and λ is an operating wavelength. The dopant elements furthermore are selected such that the chalcogenide glass core has a nonlinear refractive index n2 greater than 200n2 (SiO2), where n2 (SiO2) is the nonlinear index of silica at λ. Typically, λ is about 1.55 μm. Exemplary, the dopant elements are selected from Sb, Bi, Sn, Pb, In, Tl, Cu, Ag and S. Currently preferred dopants are Te, Sb, Tl, Cu and Ag. Waveguides according to the invention are advantageously used in all-optical switches, optical logic elements and other means for optical processing of optical pulses.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.