Wüest M. 51 Wykes M. 82 Yamaguchi M. 17 Ybarra G. 129 Yubero F ...

JUNE 27 TUESDAY AFTERNOON
JS1-TuM-INV.12 MICROFABRICATION BY DIRECT WRITING ON DIELECTRICS
USING ULTRASHORT LASER PULSES. J. Solis, Instituto de Optica, CSIC, Serrano 121, E-
28006 Madrid, SPAIN
Subsurface modification of transparent materials with femtosecond laser pulses is a promising tool
for the fabrication of 3-D photonic elements. However, in spite of its successful application to the
production of waveguides and other photonic elements such as gratings, waveguide amplifiers, or
photonic band-gap structures in a variety of dielectric materials, its widespread use is still hampered
by several problems related to the control of energy deposition inside the dielectric material. The
presence of spherical aberrations, as a consequence of the refractive index mismatch at the airdielectric
interface, as well as non-linear propagation phenomena have already been identified as
critical issues, very particularly in high refractive index materials. The presentation will provide an
overview of the fundamentals of this processing technique as well as different strategies aimed either
at better controlling the energy deposition inside the material or at producing functional photonic
elements in “difficult” materials like heavy metal oxide glasses.
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