Direct femtosecond laser writing technique is now widely used in particular in glass, to produce both passive and activephotonic devices. This technique offers a real scientific opportunity to generate three-dimensional optical components.The chalcogenide glasses are of great interest since they possess a transparency window from the visible up to the midinfraredrange. Moreover, they also have high optical non-linearity and high photosensitivity that facilitate the inscriptionof permanent refractive index modification. In this presentation, an original method based on both the filamentationphenomenon and a point-by-point technique will be described. The written waveguide is of multicore type and consistsin parallel channels of positive Δn placed parallel to each other on a hexagonal or a circular mesh. The performances interms of optical losses at both 1.55 μm and 4.55 μm measured in such photowritten buried infrared waveguide are verycompetitive. This writing technique is particularly suitable for the design of single mode waveguide for wavelengthsranging from the visible up to the mid-infrared since the geometry of the inscription and the amplitude of the refractiveindex modification can be easily adapted. This also paves the way for the fabrication of advanced mid-infrared opticalcomponents such as Y-splitters.
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