Silica-based circular cross-sectioned channel waveguides

A technique for fabricating silica channel waveguides with circular cross sections is presented. The geometrical mismatch between a square or rectangular waveguide and a regular optical fiber is therefore largely reduced. The fiber-waveguide-fiber coupling loss drops from 1.8 dB to 0.5 dB or less for step index multimode waveguides by applying this technique. The heat treatment applied in the waveguide rounding process also smooths the waveguide sidewalls and results in much lower propagation loss in the waveguides. Uniform Y splitters were fabricated to show the feasibility of using this technique to make integrated optical devices.<>