Er-doped glass ridge-waveguide amplifiers fabricated with a collimated sputter deposition technique

We report a new fabrication process for Er-doped glass ridge waveguides. The process does not require etching of an Er-doped film in defining the lateral dimension of a waveguide, but involves a liftoff process using polyimide as a sacrificial layer. An Er-doped soda-lime silicate glass film (1.5-μm thick) was deposited at 350 °C using a collimated sputtering technique. Conventional sputtering techniques have been known to be incompatible with a liftoff process. The collimated sputtering, however, allowed us easy liftoff of Er-doped films, and produced well-defined ridges with smooth surface profiles. A 1.7-cm-long waveguide thus fabricated shows a 1.55-μm signal enhancement of 15.4 dB with a 980-nm pump power of 40 mW. This enhancement fully compensates for both Er absorption and waveguide losses, and results in a gain of 7.2 dB.