Abstract

Recently there has been considerable research into the process and applications of the UV induced refractive index change in germanosilicate glasses. Most of the Ge-doped planar structures reported to date have been formed by flame hydrolysis and require hydrogen loading for up to 2 weeks [1] to become reasonably photosensitive. An alternative deposition technique, which is able to produce photosensitive films without hydrogen loading, is Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD). UV induced refractive index changes of up to +0.0035 [2] and in the range from -0.0036 to +0.0017 [3] have been reported for Ge-doped PECVD silica films without use of hydrogen loading.

© 1996 Optical Society of America