Femtosecond-Laser-Written Microstructured Waveguides in BK7 Glass Received: 21 May 2018 George Y

www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Femtosecond-laser-written Microstructured Waveguides in BK7 Glass Received: 21 May 2018 George Y. Chen 1, Fiorina Piantedosi 1, Dale Otten1, Yvonne Qiongyue Kang 1, Accepted: 26 June 2018 Wen Qi Zhang 1, Xiaohong Zhou2, Tanya M. Monro 1 & David G. Lancaster 1 Published: xx xx xxxx There is a defciency of low-loss microstructured waveguides that can be fabricated with a single laser- pass to minimize stress build-up, which can enable enhanced functionality and higher compactness for integrated optical devices. We demonstrate, for the frst time, a series of multi-ring claddings each with a pair of cores in BK7 glass. Each waveguide was fabricated using only a single laser-pass at 1 MHz pulse repetition rate, 5 mm/s translation speed, 250 fs pulse width, over a set of pulse energies. We obtained the lowest-reported propagation loss of 0.062 dB/cm, measured at 1155 nm wavelength from the waveguide written with 340 nJ pulse energy. The maximum observed numerical aperture is 0.020, measured at 1155 nm wavelength from the waveguide written with 620 nJ pulse energy. Such waveguides could be incorporated in integrated Raman laser platforms for biomedical applications. Unlike many optical fber technologies, integrated optical devices can be more readily miniaturized and uni- fed with micro-electronics, realizing precise and highly complex integrated systems. Femtosecond-laser writing was frst demonstrated in 19961–3, and has since been extensively researched. Femtosecond-laser (fs) waveguide writing in glass is a promising fabrication technique for integrated optics, due to its versatility to rapidly direct-write complex structures with fne precision. In comparison, photolithography4 and focused ion beam micro-machining5 are slower. Waveguide structures can now be directly written in a multitude of materials, including glasses, crystals and polymers6–8. Compared to the most common techniques, electron beam lithog- raphy and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), fs-laser direct writing has the benefts of fast fabrication, fexibility in waveguide design, high spatial precision (i.e. limited by beam quality, wavelength and polarization), and simple integration of the resulting waveguides with fberized components9. Of particular interest are borosilicate glasses, such as the borosilicate-crown glass from Schott (N-BK7, refractive index is 1.5055 at 1155 nm wavelength10), which exhibit high transmission in the visible and near-infrared, few defects, low density, high chemical-stability, and low processing-cost. Owing to these qualities, they are extensively used in commercial optics and in the optical communications industry, and waveguide writing in this material has attracted considerable interest. Te process of laser-induced waveguide fabrication can be categorized into three main types based on the for- malism presented by Calmano et al.11–13. Te Type I writing process (i.e. modifying the core region to change the core refractive-index) is simple, involving a single laser-pass (i.e. one-step motion of laser writing). Propagation losses as low as 0.2 dB/cm have been demonstrated via this type of writing14. However, multiple laser-passes are needed to fabricate a microstructured waveguide via a Type I writing process. Te Type II writing process (i.e. modifying the cladding region to change both the core and cladding RIs) and the Type III writing process (i.e. modifying the cladding region to change the cladding RI alone) requires even more laser passes than the Type I writing process to create a microstructured waveguide, and engenders additional defects such as a highly scatter- ing core-cladding interface. It is difcult to fabricate low-loss microstructured waveguides in a BK7 glass substrate without multiple laser-passes, which increases production time and elevates the risk of stress-induced micro-cracks15 from succes- sive heating and quenching cycles. However, such designs (e.g. two cores) supporting space-division multiplexing of light can ofer enhanced functionality and higher compactness for integrated optical devices such as optofuidic 1Laser Physics and Photonic Devices Laboratories, School of Engineering, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, 5095, Australia. 2State Key Joint Laboratory of ESPC, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 10084, China. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to G.Y.C. (email: [email protected]) SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | (2018) 8:10377 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28631-3 1 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 1. Schematic of the fs-laser material processing system, and the characterization method. Inset (top): cross-section image of waveguide written with 720 nJ pulse energy, inset (bottom): false-color intensity distribution of the centrally guided mode. chips16, photonic circuits17 and frequency combs18. Similar applications to those of twin-core fbers can also be explored, such as interferometric19-and plasmonic-based sensing20, and optical tweezers21. One study22 made progress towards fabricating microstructured designs with a single laser-pass, having written both a core and a single-ring cladding via a Type I writing process. To address the problem of single laser-pass writing of microstructured waveguides, we have determined suit- able parameters for writing to create waveguides comprising a multi-ring cladding and a pair of cores in a BK7 glass substrate, using the single-pass Type I writing process that would otherwise only be possible with a multiple laser-pass Type II writing process. Since only a single laser-pass is required per waveguide, it mitigates the build-up of stress inside the glass substrate, allowing further laser modifcations in close proximity without cracking15. Applications employing diferential techniques such as interferometry can beneft from the simplicity, confgurability and robustness ofered by this single-pass multi-core architecture. Fabrication Nonlinear absorption of fs-laser pulse(s) followed by rapid ionization inside a bulk material leads to thermally induced formation of defects, material densifcation/rarefaction or material ablation. Te introduction of these defects and density changes give rise to RI changes. Te extent of such modifcation is determined by many fac- tors such as wavelength, pulse energy, focal spot size, intensity/phase profles, pulse width, pulse repetition rate, translation speed, writing direction, writing depth and polarization2,3. Te parameter space for writing waveguides in glass is important to realizing the intended design and properties. Te femtosecond-laser material-processing system shown in Fig. 1 employed for this work was confgured with 1047 nm wavelength, 250 fs pulse width, using 1.25 numerical aperture (NA) infnity-corrected microscope objective lens (Zeiss N-Achroplan) with 100 × magnifcation (i.e. to increase intensity and thus refractive-index change) and a working distance of 460 μm (i.e. refractive index of oil immersion matches that of BK7). Waveguide fabrication was performed using a pulse repetition rate of 1 MHz. Pulse energies were varied by using a variable attenuator (Altechna 2-UWPA-R1-0800). Laser passes were performed by translating the glass substrate mounted on a 4-axis air-bearing translation system with a positional accuracy of ~100 nm. To ensure sample fatness, a 2-axis goniometer is used to align the glass substrate face with the translation plane. To align the focal spot within the glass substrate, an imaging system is mounted above the objective lens. Te imaging system consists of a CCD camera (Edmond Optics EO-5012C) ftted to a variable focal-length lens located ~250 mm from the back aperture of the objective lens. Te dichroic mirror noted in Fig. 1 refects a narrow wavelength band around the laser wavelength to the sample and allows transmission of the sample illumination to the imaging system. In this con- fguration, the imaging system and the objective lens forms a simple microscope with the laser beam included in the feld of view of the microscope. To facilitate a stable laser beam to be focused down onto a sample, the system is built on and around a granite bridge platform resting on a passively vibration-isolated optical table. A pre-objective spot diameter of ~5 mm, pulse width of 250 fs, pulse repetition rate of 1 MHz, linear polarization parallel to the written waveguides, laser translation speed of 5 mm/s (i.e. 200,000 pulses/mm and 0.2 s/mm), and writing direction from lef to right were applied to write waveguides at 200 μm depth and 200 μm spacing in a SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | (2018) 8:10377 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28631-3 2 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 2. Bright-feld transmission images of the waveguides written as a function of pulse energy. Top image of each pair: smaller illumination aperture, bottom image: larger illumination aperture. BK7 glass substrate measuring 30.0 × 10.0 × 1.5 mm. Ten, the end-faces of the waveguides were polished back by roughly 1 mm each to remove waveguide sections afected by boundary efects, resulting in the fnal dimensions of 30.0 × 8.1 × 1.5 mm. Results and Discussion Geometry measurement. To inspect waveguide geometry and light guidance, a halogen light bulb with an adjustable aperture was used in conjunction with a microscope (Nikon DS-Ri2) to observe the end-face of the waveguides. Te resulting images are presented in Fig. 2 as a function of pulse energy, at both a smaller and larger illumination aperture sizes. Te images are oriented such that the writing beam is incident from the top of each image. Tey exhibit varying sizes, structures and colors depending on the pulse energies used for writing, and diferent spectral transmission characteristics depending on the illumination aperture size. A common feature of all waveguides is a non-circular geometry with one side of the multiple ring layers featuring a dip/spot (i.e. attributed to beam astigmatism, self-focusing and plasma defocusing23), featuring two cores aligned perpendicular to the glass interface seen from the longitudinal perspective.

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