Mid-infrared ridge waveguide in MgO:LiNbO3 crystal produced by combination of swift O5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing

Abstract We report on the fabrication of ridge waveguide operating at mid-infrared wavelength in MgO:LiNbO3 crystal by using O5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing. The waveguide shows good guiding properties at the wavelength of 4 μm along the TM polarization. Thermal annealing has been implemented to improve the waveguiding performances. The propagation loss of the ridge waveguide has been reduced to be 1.0 dB/cm at 4 μm after annealing at 310 °C. The micro-Raman spectra indicate that the microstructure of the MgO:LiNbO3 crystal has no significant change along the ion track after swift O5+ ion irradiation.