Abstract

The processing of Ti-indiffused lithium niobate devices is not unlike the processing of semiconductor devices.¹ The procedure involved to fabricate a waveguide in lithium niobate includes: deposition of a blanket film of Ti; coating with resist; exposure through a mask; development of the resist; etching of the Ti; and finally diffusion in a controlled atmosphere. The steps of delineating the waveguide features is time-consuming and usually gated by the mask. This is especially true when the active area of research is usually the geometry of the guides themselves, i.e., the branching angles, radius of curvature, distance between guides. Laser microfabrication techniques^2,3 can be applied to this problem in an effort to reduce the number of processing steps.

© 1988 Optical Society of America