Abstract

We demonstrate mircromilling of precision slots in Flame Hydrolysis Deposition (FHD) silica with nanoscale surface roughness for integrated photonic applications [1]. Slots have been micromilled with surface roughness of 3.0 nm (Sa) and 17 µm depth of cut in a single pass using our in-house developed micromilling system. This result represents eight times improvement in surface roughness and a forty times deeper cut depth than the previous state of the art in silica slot micromilling [2]. We also show that these slots can be integrated with waveguides and Bragg gratings to create optofluidic refractometers.

© 2015 IEEE