Ultrafast laser inscription: an enabling technology for astrophotonics.

Ultrafast laser inscription of a 121-waveguide fan-out for astrophotonics.

Using ultrafast laser inscription, we report the fabrication of a prototype three-dimensional 121-waveguide fan-out device capable of reformatting the output of a 120-core multicore fiber (MCF) into a one-dimensional linear array. When used in conjunction with an actual MCF, we demonstrate that the reformatting function using this prototype would result in an overall through put loss of ≈7.0  d...

Ultrafast laser inscription of an integrated photonic lantern.

We used ultrafast laser inscription to fabricate three-dimensional integrated optical transitions that efficiently couple light from a multimode waveguide to a two-dimensional array of single mode waveguides and back. Although the entire device has an average insertion loss of 5.7 dB at 1539 nm, only ≈0.7 dB is due to mode coupling losses. Based on an analysis which is presented in the paper, w...

Editorial for the Special Issue on Ultrafast Laser Fabrication for Lab-on-a-Chip

Ultrafast laser microfabrication is a very powerful method for producing integrated devices in transparent materials [1]. This technology has found applications in many diverse fields, ranging from optofluidics [2] to astrophotonics [3] and metamaterials [4]. In particular, the versatility of this technology relies on the broad portfolio of processes that it includes, encompassing subtractive (...

AFRL-AFOSR-UK-TR-2016-0022 Mid-infrared photonic devices fabricated by ultrafast laser inscription

Mid-Infrared Volume Phase Gratings Manufactured using Ultrafast Laser Inscription

We report on the ultrafast laser inscription (ULI) of volume phase gratings inside gallium lanthanum sulphide (GLS) chalcogenide glass substrates. The effect of laser pulse energy and grating thickness on the dispersive properties of the gratings is investigated, with the aim of improving the performance of the gratings in the mid-infrared. The grating with the optimum performance in the mid-in...