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We report on the fabrication of stress-induced optical channel waveguides and waveguide splitters with laser-depressed cladding by femtosecond laser. The laser beam was focused into neodymium doped phosphate glass by an objective producing a destructive filament. By moving the sample along an enclosed routine in the horizontal plane followed by a minor descent less than the filament length in the vertical direction, a cylinder with rarified periphery and densified center region was fabricated. Lining up the segments in partially overlapping sequence enabled waveguiding therein. The refractive-index contrast, near- and far-field mode distribution and confocal microscope fluorescence image of the waveguide were obtained. 1-to-2, 1-to-3 and 1-to-4 splitters were also machined with adjustable splitting ratio. Compared with traditional femtosecond laser writing methods, waveguides prepared by this approach showed controllable mode conduction, strong field confinement, large numerical aperture, low propagation loss and intact core region.

We report on the formation and the optical properties of the planar and ridge optical waveguides in rutile TiO2 crystal by He+ ion implantation combined with micro-fabrication technologies. Planar optical waveguides in TiO2 are fabricated by high-energy (2.8 MeV) He+-ion implantation with a dose of 3 × 1016 ions/cm2 and triple low energies (450, 500, 550) keV He+-ion implantation with all fluences of 2 × 1016 ions/cm2 at room temperature. The guided modes were measured by a modal 2010 prism coupler at wavelength of 1539 nm. There are damage profiles in ion-implanted waveguides by Rutherford backscattering (RBS)/channeling measurements. The refractive-index profile of the 2.8 MeV He+-implanted waveguide was analyzed based on RCM (Reflected Calculation Method). Also ridge waveguides were fabricated by femtosecond laser ablation on 2.8 MeV ion implanted planar waveguide and Ar ion beam etching on the basis of triple keV ion implanted planar waveguide, separately. The loss of the ridge waveguide was estimated. The measured near-field intensity distributions of the planar and ridge modes are all shown.