Femtosecond-laser-written low-loss multiscan waveguides in fused silica

We report low-loss multiscan waveguides fabricated in fused silica using femtosecond-laser-writing technology. The multiscan principle allows the writing regime to be tailored to excel at key features of any integrated photonic platform: coupling losses and propagation losses. We optimized the writing parameters for different sizes of square-shaped waveguides and reached the mode overlap value with a standard single-mode optical fiber of above 98.8% and demonstrated very low coupling losses of 0.2 dB/facet on average. Propagation losses in the fabricated waveguides amounted to 0.07 dB/cm. We applied the developed recipe to the fabrication of a fiber-coupled 25-channel interferometer with total insertion losses below 1 dB. The findings of this work are of interest for broad range of applications and in particular for optical information processing and quantum photonics.