Milled-groove method for fiber-to-waveguide couplers

We report a simple milled-groove process integrated with a two-step ion-diffused waveguide fabrication for efficient coupling between single-mode fibers and integrated optical waveguides and - branches. We demonstrate such a coupling technique using a) a multimode transition to single-mode waveguide coupler, and b) an integrated optical 3-dB branching waveguide coupler from a single-mode fiber to silver/sodium ion-enchanged waveguide components. The coupling loss was about 1-2 dB over a propagation length of 2 cm at an operating wavelength of 633 nm.