Optical waveguide

Abstract

Proposed is an improved optical waveguide consisting of a substrate plate such as a silicon wafer, an undercladding layer of silica glass thereon, a core line of silica glass extending on the undercladding layer and having a larger refractive index than the undercladding layer and an overcladding layer of silica glass having a smaller refractive index than the core line to cover the undercladding layer and the core line thereon altogether. Different from conventional optical waveguides of this type, of which each of the undercladding layer, core line and overcladding layer is formed by the flame deposition method of silica or electron-beam vapor deposition method followed by vitrification taking a relatively long time, the overcladding layer in the inventive optical waveguide is formed by forming a layer of an organopolysiloxane resin on the undercladding layer and core line followed by the oxidative thermal decomposition of the resin into silica and vitrification of the same. Alternatively, an optical waveguide, which is conventional as mentioned above but of which the thickness of the overcladding layer is greatly decreased, is provided with a top coating layer from the organopolysiloxane resin as above. The inventive optical waveguides can be manufactured with greatly increased productivity.