Fabrication and optical properties of sol–gel derived organic–inorganic photosensitive ridge waveguide structure doped with disperse red 13

Disperse red 13 (DR13) azoaromatic chromophores were embedded into the sol–gel derived organic–inorganic hybrid waveguide films with photosensitive properties. Third-order nonlinear properties of the hybrid waveguide films were investigated by using a z-scan technique under a femtosecond laser pulse at the wavelength of 800 nm. Planar waveguide properties and changes of absorbance of the hybrid films under an irradiation of the non-polarized UV light at 365 nm were also characterized by a prism coupling technique and UV–visible spectroscopy, respectively. Advantages for fabrication of the functional ridge waveguide structure were demonstrated by a UV-cured imprint technique, and the results indicate that the fabrication process is simple and cost-effective. Morphological and surface profile properties of the ridge waveguide structure were observed by scanning electron microscopy and the propagation loss of the ridge waveguide structure was also measured by a cut-back method. All these results indicate that the as-fabricated waveguides are promising candidate for integrated optics applications.