Method for preparing optical waveguide substrate
AssigneeShin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.
InventorsShinji Makikawa, Shigeru Konishi, Seiki Ejima
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Abstract
An optical waveguide substrate is prepared by forming grooves in a silicon substrate in accordance with the pattern of a desired waveguide device, thermally oxidizing the silicon substrate to form a peripheral quartz layer surrounding the grooves, burying in the grooves a doped quartz glass layer having a higher refractive index, abrading the surface of the resulting structure to be flat, and forming on the flat surface a glass layer having a lower refractive index. An optical waveguide substrate featuring no distortion of the core pattern, little warp, and a low loss can be produced in a simple manner.
Claims14
A method for preparing an optical waveguide substrate, comprising the steps of:
- forming concave grooves in one surface of a silicon substrate in accordance with the pattern of a desired waveguide device,
- thermally oxidizing the silicon substrate to form a peripheral, quartz layer surrounding the grooves,
- burying in the grooves a doped quartz glass layer having a higher refractive index than the peripheral quartz layer,
- abrading the surface of the resulting structure to be a flat to define higher refractive index quartz glass layer segments in the grooves, and
- forming on the flat surface a glass layer having a lower refractive index than the quartz glass layer, wherein light propagates through the higher refractive index quartz glass layer segments buried in the grooves.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.