Grating reflectors for erbium-doped lithium niobate waveguide lasers

A grating fabrication technology has been established for producing DFB- /DBR-grating structures in Er-doped Ti:LiNbO3 waveguide lasers. It is based on holographically defined resist gratings transferred into the surface of LiNbO3 waveguides using reactive ion etching with SF6 gas as the dry etching technique. For a sample with a 24 mm long surface relief grating of 346 nm period, a transmission drop of -11.7 dB, a filter bandwidth as small as 0.08 nm, a Bragg resonance wavelength at 1528.4 nm very close to the Erbium absorption line at 1531 nm and excess losses attributed to the grating of only 1 to 2 dB were measured.

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