Abstract
Birefringence tunability is demonstrated in waveguides formed in bulk fused silica and in the core of
single mode fibers, by femtosecond laser writing of stress inducing tracks that are placed with different geometries
around the core of the waveguides. The femtosecond laser generated stress effect was probed by the birefringence
induced spectral splitting of either Bragg grating waveguides in bulk fused silica or weakly modulated, femtosecond
laser induced Bragg gratings in optical fibers. Birefringence values as low as
${4} \times {10}^{-6}$
and up to
${2} \times
{10}^{-3}$
were obtained by controlling the fabrication conditions such as the laser pulse
energy, the writing femtosecond laser polarization, the number of overwriting exposures, and the geometry of the
induced stress tracks. Wave retarders are developed and characterized by a cross polarization technique to provide the
spectral response of the stress induced birefringence, offering the convenient fabrication of short length and
broadband in-line polarization devices. With this approach, millimeter length tracks provided 10 nm bandwidth
polarization retarders in a single mode fiber and a 65 nm bandwidth retarders in bulk fused silica.
© 2013 IEEE
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription