Planar optical waveguides in β-BaB2O4 produced by oxygen ion implantation at low doses

The planar waveguides have been fabricated in z-cut beta-BaB2O4 crystal by 2.2 MeV O+ ion implantation at doses ranging from 5x10(12) to 5x10(14) ions/cm(2) at room temperature. The waveguides were characterized by the prism-coupling method. Monomode, nonleaky planar waveguides at lambda=633 nm in beta-BBO single crystals were fabricated at doses from 5x10(12) to 2x10(13) ions/cm(2), and two mode and three mode waveguides were fabricated at doses from 4x10(13) to 5x10(14) ions/cm(2), respectively. The refractive index profiles of the waveguides are reconstructed using reflectivity calculation method. The propagation loss of the measured ion implanted waveguide was about 1.6 dB/cm. It was found that positive changes of extraordinary refractive indices happened in the guiding regions, and such changes increased with the doses, which were different from most of the observed ion-implanted waveguides. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.