Fabrication and characterization of chalcogenide glass photonic crystal waveguides

We report on the fabrication of chalcogenide glass (Ag-As2Se3) photonic crystal waveguides and the first detailed characterization of the linear and nonlinear optical properties. The waveguides, fabricated by e-beam lithography and ICP etching exhibit typical transmission spectra of photonic crystal waveguides, and exhibit high optical nonlinearity. Nonlinear phase shift of 1.5 pi through self-phase modulation is observed at 0.78 W input peak power in a 400 mu m long device. The effective nonlinear parameter gamma(eff) estimated from this result reaches 2.6 x 10(4) W(-1)m(-1). Four-wave mixing is also observed in the waveguide, while two-photon absorption at optical communication wavelengths is sufficiently small and the corresponding figure of merit is larger than 11. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America