Effect of Concentration-Dependence on Ion-Exchanged Channel Waveguide Profile

An accurate simulation model of ion-exchange processes for fabricating channel glass waveguides is presented. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results because the simulation takes the concentration-dependent diffusion coefficient into account and applies the cubic-interpolation pseudoparticle (CIP) method for electromigration which can treat a sharp interface with a few grids. The simulation is then used to study optimum process conditions for a buried single-mode channel waveguide. It is demonstrated that an annealing process following field-assisted ion-exchange is useful in reducing the coupling loss to a single-mode optical fiber.