Direct UV written planar devices for sensing and telecommunication applications

Abstract

This thesis reports the development and potential applications of several direct UV written devices. The material platform of these devices is a silica-on-silicon composite, fabricated using flame hydrolysis deposition.

The device development within this thesis considers wet etching, micromachining and sputtering processes to enhance the physical and chemical actuation of direct UV written planar Bragg gratings. Physical actuation has been investigated through thermo-optic and strain-optic means, chemical actuation has been achieved through evanescent field exposure. Combining the chemical and physical actuators developed, a monolithic lab-on-a-chip based device has been fabricated. The demonstrated chip has the ability to monitor pressure, flow, temperature and refractive index of a measurand, flowing through a microfluidic channel.

A novel multimode interference (MMI) based device is also presented, which uses an adaptive Bragg period to define the side walls of the device. The reported structure shows a potential reduction in excess loss, compared to alternative raster scanned device geometries for power splitting operations.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Christopher Holmes: orcid.org/0000-0001-9021-3760

ORCID for P.G.R. Smith: orcid.org/0000-0003-0319-718X

Catalogue record

Export record