Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/As heterostructure native oxide planar waveguides

Summary form only given. We have used prism coupling measurements to study the Al dependence of the refractive index in wet thermal native oxides of Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/As for Al compositions x=0.3 to 1.0. A suitable index variation (/spl Delta/n/spl ges/0.06) is found to exist for achieving waveguiding within the native oxide layers themselves. We have fabricated transparent all-oxide planar waveguide structures by fully oxidizing AlGaAs semiconductor heterostructures. We present data on multimode two-layer (single heterostructure) and single-mode three-layer (double heterostructure) waveguides formed by fully oxidizing Al/sub 0.4/Ga/sub 0.6/As core (n=1.59) and Al/sub 0.8/Ga/sub 0.2/As cladding layers (n=1.53).