Directly writing in fused of 1-to-N optical waveguide power splitters silica glass using a femtosecond laser

1-to-8 and 1-to-4 optical waveguide power splitters were fabricated using the focused 800 nm-amplified femtosecond laser to directly write a series of 1-to-2 Y-junction splitters in a fused silica glass sample. A shifted multi-scan technique was developed to substantially reduce the excessive insertion loss of the involved Y junctions and the polarization dependent loss of such integrated splitters. The obtained splitters were characterized in terms of their optical properties at the wavelength 1550 nm. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.