Abstract

Lithium niobate is a material of high interest for the fabrication of photonic elements like waveguides, splitters or switching devices because of its large nonlinear and electro-optical coefficient. The fabrication of photonic crystal structures requires a method which ensures a high accuracy. Micro machining of lithium niobate is a difficult task because of its resistance against standard pattering techniques like reactive ion etching. Several modified or alternative processes like etching in proton exchanged lithium niobate¹ or Focused Ion Beam Milling² have been used. However, the use of this techniques results in tilted sidewalls which influence the optical properties of the photonic band gap structure.

© 2007 IEEE