Nano-structuring of Transparent Materials by Femtosecond Laser Pulses

Using tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses, we produce an optical waveguide and optical devices in transparent materials. This technique has the potential to generate not only channel waveguides, but also three-dimensional optical devices. In this paper, an optical splitter and U-grooves, which are used for fiber alignment, are simultaneously fabricated in a fused silica glass using near-IR femtosecond laser pulses. The fiber aligned optical splitter has a low insertion loss, less than 4㏈, including an intrinsic splitting loss of 3㏈ and excess loss due to the passive alignment of a single-mode fiber. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of the femtosecond laser writing technique by fabricating gratings at the surface and inside the silica glass.