Low losses Er3+-doped flexible planar waveguide: Toward an all-glass flexible planar photonic system

Thin films have a crucial role in integrated optics. The development of passive and active devices such as splitters, waveguides, multiplexers and optical amplifiers is by now established on rigid substrates. Therefore, an important further step to improve this kind of technologies and open the route to new applications is to extend these functionalities to mechanically flexible devices. One fundamental brick to obtain this features extension is the fabrication of low loss inorganic active planar waveguides on flexible glass substrate. Here, we present the preliminary results of a novel top-down fabrication of an active SiO2–HfO2:Er3+ all-glass flexible planar waveguide, via radio frequency sputtering. The waveguiding system, deposited on ultrathin flexible glass substrate, showed an attenuation coefficient lower than 0.2 dB/cm at 1.53 μm and exhibits emission in the NIR region.