Formation of the distribution profile of the refractive index in glasses with ionic transfer

Investigations of space distributions of the refractive index obtained by ion exchange in aluminoborosilicate and alumoborogermanate glasses are carried out. It is shown that relaxation processes occurring in the glass structure during ion exchange (even at temperatures essentially exceeding T (up to 35/sup 0/)) lead to considerable changes in the form of distribution of the refractive index with the same concentration distributions of exchanging ions. And, naturally, that for the every glass composition this effect of the structure inequilibrity on the refractive index distribution profile will have its specific forms. However, this phenomenon does not prevent to obtain the required profiles of the refractive index distributions but, on the contrary, establish wide possibilities to control them. The distributions of the refractive index in cylindrical samples in the form of the hyperbolic secant and parabola are obtained.