University of Southampton

James Christopher Gates

Peter George Robin Smith

Corin Barry Edmund Gawith

Christopher Holmes

Lewis Glynn Carpenter

A method of forming an optical fibre assembly, comprises providing a planar substrate made of a first material; positioning an optical fibre with an outer layer of a first glass material on a surface of the substrate to form a pre-assembly; depositing a further glass material such as silica soot onto the pre-assembly, over at least a part of the optical fibre and adjacent parts of the substrate surface; and heating the pre-assembly to consolidate the further glass material into an amorphous volume in contact with at least parts of the surface of the substrate and the outer layer of the optical fibre, thereby bonding the optical fibre to the substrate to create the optical fibre assembly.

Optical fibre assembly and method of making an optical fibre assembly

An optical waveguide device () comprises a planar substrate with a lower cladding layer (), a core layer () and an upper cladding layer (), a groove () in the substrate that extends at least into the core layer (), and a waveguiding channel () in the core layer (), wherein at least a part of the waveguiding channel (), which may contain a Bragg grating, is sufficiently proximate to the groove () in the plane of the substrate for an evanescent field of light propagating in the waveguiding channel () to extend laterally into the groove (). Material contained in the groove modifies the properties of the waveguiding channel, so that a sample of material can be analysed or an active material can be used to modulate the propagating light. The groove () can be made before the waveguide (). The groove () can be made by cutting into the substrate with a saw and the waveguide () can be made by direct writing in the core layer () with an ultraviolet beam.

Growing community of inventors

Ringwood, United Kingdom

James Christopher Gates