Sol-gel fabrication and characterization of ZnO and Zn_2SiO_4 nanoparticles embedded silica glass-ceramic waveguides

ZnO and Zn2SiO4 nanoparticles embedded SiO2 waveguides, a new candidate for fabrication of low-loss glass-ceramic active-waveguides for integrated optic applications, were fabricated by the sol-gel technique using dip-coating process. The waveguides fabricated from the sol-gel solution composed of (100-x) SiO2–x ZnO (x = 25, 30, and 35 mol %) exhibited uniform thickness (1.5 ± 0.1 µm), and refractive index of 1.529 ± 0.005 (for x = 35 mol %) at 632.8 nm. Propagation loss of 1.4 ± 0.2 dB/cm at 632.8 nm was observed in the transparent glass-ceramic waveguides. The as-prepared waveguides contained nanoparticles of average size ~15 nm uniformly dispersed in the SiO2 matrix. Formation of Zn2SiO4 along with ZnO nanoparticles in the waveguides is confirmed from the X-ray diffraction patterns and photoluminescence spectra. The tuning of the optical and spectroscopic properties by controlled heat-treatment of the as-prepared active-waveguides has been demonstrated.

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