Glasses for Photonic Integration

Inorganic glasses form the backbone of dielectric materials in optics and photonic applications. In addition to offering a range of transparency windows, intrinsic physical properties of glass materials also offer flexibility of processing for the realization of fibers, films, and shaped optical elements. Traditionally, the main role of glass has been as an optically passive material. However, a significant attribute of glass as an optical medium is to host dopants such as nanoparticles or active ions in a unique chemical environment, which can be engineered via processing, by controlling the geometry to develop active and passive photonic devices, such as laser, amplification, storage media, optical switching, frequency conversion, and sensor media.