Rare-Earth-Doped Planar Waveguide Amplifiers

Abstract

Successes in Er-doped fiber amplifier research have stimulated the development of Er-doped glass planar waveguides because of their potential for application in compact active integrated devices. This technology will enable us to construct amplifiers or more complicated optical circuits on substrates with much shorter waveguides than the fiber-type circuits. As an initial step towards such integration, Nd-doped- and then, Er-doped waveguide devices have been reported which were fabricated using a number of different materials and fabrication techniques [1-11]. We have reported a planar waveguide laser, amplifiers and an integrated ring laser on silicon substrates which employ Er-doped silica-based planar lightwave circuits fabricated by flame hydrolysis deposition (FHD) and reactive ion etching (RIE) [1-7]. It is now essential that a method for designing planar amplifiers be developed in order to improve device performance and realize new active circuits.