Phenomenological studies of femtosecond laser ablation on optical thin films for integrated photonics

Abstract: In this work, for the first time of our knowledge, we present a well-supported procedure to fabricate ridge optical waveguides onto thin films of PLZT by femtosecond laser ablation. In order to achieve smooth guiding structures to guarantee good optical performance, we have studied the ablation threshold characteristics for different kinematic conditions of fs laser machining and also we have explored the different ablation regimens for several fluencies reached. Besides, we characterize the morphology and roughness of ridge waveguides through a modal and scattering loss analysis, for waveguides made with single and multiple scan. An innovative phenomenological model that relates the sidewall roughness to process parameters is proposed in this paper. Conducting this approach it is possible to extend the fabrication method of smooth guiding structures by fs micromachining to many optical thin films in order to develop integrated photonics devices addressed to different technological applications.