Planar and strip optical waveguides utilizing GaAs epitaxial films and GaAs1 – xPx solid solutions

Base multilayer epitaxial waveguide structures made of GaAs and GaAs_1 – xP_x solid solutions were developed and investigated. They should be suitable for integrated optical systems utilizing strip optical waveguides. An investigation and optimization of the parameters of strip waveguides made of these structures was carried out. Strip waveguides with a practically homogeneous refractive index of the base planar waveguide and almost vertical side walls of the guiding strip are fabricated. At the wavelength of 1.3 μm the losses in such waveguides were less than 1 dB/cm. An analytic expression was obtained for the effective format of a strip optical waveguide and a study was made of the influence of the parameters of a base planar or strip waveguide on its effective format for the fundamental mode.