Optical planar and ridge waveguides in terbium gallium garnet crystals produced by ion implantation and precise diamond blade dicing

We report on the preparation and characterization of the planar and ridge waveguides in TGG crystals. The planar waveguide was formed by the 6.0-MeV Si-ion implantation with a dose of 2.0 × 1015 ions/cm2 and the precise diamond blade dicing technique was applied to manufacture the surface of the planar waveguide to construct the ridge structure. The images of planar and ridge cross-sections were photographed by a metallographic microscope. The SRIM 2013 was utilized to achieve the energy loss profiles of electrons and nuclei. The dark-mode spectra and the guiding properties were separately measured by the prism coupling and end-face coupling methods. The simulation processing on the refractive index profile and the near-field mode distribution were operated by the RCM and the BPM software, respectively. In consideration of the high-quality optical propagation performances, the TGG planar and ridge waveguides can serve as superior candidates in the magneto-optical devices.