Abstract
A passivation method for improving long-term stability of organic-inorganic sol-gel material is reported. The effect is observed in experiments with two different passivation materials: Teflon AF and SiO2. A regime of material curing prior to the passivation is found to strongly affect the optical loss. The degradation of waveguide loss with time due to moisture adsorption from the atmosphere is drastically suppressed by coating the material with a thin silica film. The results indicate a long-term optical loss below 0.3 dB/cm in coated waveguides, significantly smaller than that in uncoated waveguides. The mechanism of the loss reduction is described and experimentally confirmed.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 47-51 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology |
Volume | 34 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2005 |
Keywords
- Material stability
- Optical loss
- Organic-inorganic sol-gel
- Waveguide
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Ceramics and Composites
- General Chemistry
- Biomaterials
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Materials Chemistry