Fabrication of sol-gel-derived optical waveguide on InP for hybridized photonics applications

In this paper, we report on the first successful fabrication, using spin-coating and low-temperature (200 °C) annealing, of organically modified sol-gel planar optical waveguides on InP substrates. Considering the fact that the sol-gel technique is simple and cheap, and III-V compound semiconductors are the essential substrate materials for manufacturing data communication devices, we believe that our demonstration of optical waveguiding in sol-gel-derived waveguides on III-V compound semoconductors is interesting. It opens the possibility of hybridizating traditional glass or optical-crystal-based integrated optics with III-V compound semiconductor-based optoelectronics. Received: 4 August1999 / Accepted: 6 August 1999 / Published online: 16 September 1999