Fabrication of electro-optic Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 heterostructure waveguides on Nb-doped SrTiO3 by solid-phase epitaxy

Pb(Zr, Ti)O-3 (PZT) heterostructure optical waveguides were grown on low resistivity Nb-doped SrTiO3(100) substrates by solid-phase epitaxy. The propagation loss was reduced to 1.7 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.3 mu m by introducing an epitaxial buffer layer between the PZT waveguide and the Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrate. An electro-optic beam deflector with an indium-tin-oxide prism electrode on the surface of the PZT waveguide showed efficient laser beam deflection as great as 3.3 degrees (58 mrad) by applying 20 V between the prism electrode and the substrate. An index change higher than 0.001 at 5 V and an average apparent electro-optic coefficient larger than 46 pm/V were estimated from the deflection characteristic. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03419-1].