Laser erasable implanted gratings for integrated silicon photonics

In this work we experimentally demonstrate laser erasable germanium implanted Bragg gratings in SOI. Bragg gratings are formed in a silicon waveguide by ion implantation induced amorphization, and are subsequently erased by a contained laser thermal treatment process. An extinction ratio up to 24dB has been demonstrated in transmission for the fabricated implanted Bragg gratings with lengths up to 1000 mu m. Results are also presented, demonstrating that the gratings can be selectively removed by UV pulsed laser annealing, enabling a new concept of laser erasable devices for integrated photonics. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America