Femtosecond laser micromachined optical waveguides in LiTaO₃ crystal

Abstract By using femtosecond laser micromachining, optical wave guides in both depressed cladding and dual‐line configurations have been produced in LiTaO₃ crystal. The guiding properties and the thermal stability have been investigated for both geometries, which exhibit different performance. Depressed cladding waveguides support guidance along both extraordinary and ordinary index polarizations, while dual‐line waveguides support only extraordinary index polarization. Thermal annealing has been proved to be an effective method to reduce the propagation losses. For the cladding waveguide, the lowest propagation loss was as low as 0.38 dB/cm after the annealing treatment at 400 °C. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)