Kiel 2011 – scientific programme

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K: Fachverband Kurzzeitphysik

K 6: Lasermaterialbearbeitung II

K 6.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 14:45–15:00, HS D

ps micromachining of LiNbO₃ for optical applications — •Mareike Stolze¹, Benjamin Weigand², Thomas Herrmann¹, Andreas Lenhard², Christoph Becher², and Johannes L’huillier¹ — ¹Photonik-Zentrum Kaiserslautern e.V., Kohlenhofstraße 10, 67663 Kaiserslautern — ²Universität des Saarlandes, FR 7.2 Experimentalphysik, Campus E2.6, 66123 Saarbrücken

Over the past years waveguides in LiNbO₃ attended great interest in integrated optics. They opened a variety of application possibilities such as telecommunication or nonlinear optics, because of their remarkable optical properties. Ridge waveguide structures afford higher refractive index contrast and smaller cross section, whereby the intensity of the guided mode will be enhanced.

Several fabrication techniques have been established for LiNbO₃ such as wet and dry etching techniques. Micromachining with pulsed laser systems may be an attractive alternative. This process offers several benefits, like high precision and accuracy, flexibility in cutting complex shapes, and single-stage processing. We present results on laser micromachining of LiNbO₃ using a high-precision 5-axes workstation with a ps-laser system operating at 355 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm. Ablation rates and threshold fluences will be presented, as well as the surface quality of the laser machined structures at different laser fluences. Based on these results first micromachined structures in LiNbO₃ will be presented.