Recent development of ion-exchanged glass waveguide technology

A brief review is given on the physical mechanism and the state-of-the-art of glass-based integrated optic devices by ion-exchange technology, after which an comprehensive introduction is made on our recent research work conducted on glass-based waveguide devices manufacturing, including ion-exchange technology investigation, device configuration optimization, and novel devices development, Emphasis being put on development of glass based integrated optical splitter for optical communication networks application. In the last part, a prospect is given on glass based hybrid optical waveguide, which is regarded as a promising solution to low-cost, high-performance, multifunctional integrated optic devices, for it combines the advantages of glass waveguide and functionalities of another material.