Waveguides produced by ultra-short laser pulses inside glasses and crystals

摘要

Using tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses waveguides are fabricated inside glasses and crystalline materials. The guiding and attenuation properties at different wavelengths as well as the micromorphology of the irradiated samples are studied. We demonstrate the fabrication of single- and multimode waveguides with damping losses well below 1 dB/cm in fused silica. In crystalline quartz we found that the irradiated area has become amorphous due to the absorption of the laser radiation. In this case waveguiding is observed in a stress-induced region surrounding the irradiated, amorphous area.