The effects of copper ion-exchange process on the prepared glass planar waveguides

Soda-lime glass planar optical waveguides are fabricated by copper ion-exchange technique.The effective indices are measured by prism coupling method and the refractive index profiles of the planar waveguides are reconstructed by inverse WKB method.The properties of the prepared waveguides are affected by the time and temperature of the ion-exchange process.It was found that the modes and depth of the waveguides were not monotonic increasing with the ion-exchange time and temperature increasing,the number of the modes increases at first and then decreases with the ion-exchange time increasing.The maximum mode number and waveguide depth are obtained with a proper ion-exchange time.The intensity of the blue-green emission band nearly increases consistently with the ion-exchange temperature increasing within the proper ion-exchange time,the broadband luminescence is centered at the wavelength of 520 nm and the intensity depends on the concentration of Cu+ and the effects of Cu2+ in the samples.