Solid state field-assisted diffusion of silver in multi-component tellurite glasses

Abstract In this work, we have prepared Ag-doped multi-component tellurite glasses by solid state electric field-assisted (SSFA) diffusion. The silver concentration profiles after SSFA diffusion were measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). It is found that the SIMS depth profiles can be well fitted by a classical erfc-like function. And the concentration dependence of silver diffusion coefficient has been investigated by using the Boltzmann–Matano analysis. The refractive index after SSFA diffusion is increased by ∆n = 0.025 (λ = 1550 nm) without the glass surface being contaminated. Our results demonstrate that SSFA diffusion is a well controllable, non-destructive method to fabricate planar waveguides based on our newly developed tellurite glasses.