Propagation characteristics of Ag+ ion-exchanged stripe waveguides

A detailed experimental study of stripe waveguides formed by Ag⁺/Na ion-exchange has been carried out. Propagation constants were precisely measured by excitation of single output pq-lines. The resulting data allowed us to approximate the transverse silver distribution by a rectangular profile. The effective index method is used for calculating theoretical propagation constants, assuming no sideways diffusion. A comparison between experiment and theory is made over the range of mask widths studied.