Low-dose carbon-implanted planar waveguides in Er3+/Yb3+ co-doped silicate glasses

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, on the fabrication of planar waveguides in Er3+/Yb3+ co-doped silicate glasses by 6.0 MeV carbon implantation with a dose of 6.0 × 1014 ions/cm2. The guiding properties are measured by the prism-coupling and end-face coupling methods with a He–Ne beam. The refractive index profile of the planar waveguide is reconstructed by the reflectivity calculation method, which shows a typical “enhanced well + optical barrier” distribution. The micro-luminescence and Raman investigations reveal that the bulk features are not deteriorated significantly by the carbon implantation in the waveguide, exhibiting possible applications for integrated active photonic devices.