Proton-implanted CeO₂/Sb₂O₃-co-doped phosphate glass waveguides and its annealing evolution

Proton implantation has received increasing attention in the field of optical waveguide fabrication. It is meaningful to explore the annealing effects on the guiding properties of the proton-implanted waveguides. In this work, the CeO_2/Sb_2O_3-co-doped phosphate glass waveguides were formed by 400-keV proton implantation, and the proton fluence was chosen to be 8\times10^16 ions/cm^2. The implanted glass was annealed in a series of 60-min thermal treatments at temperatures ranging from 260 ^\circC to 360 ^\circC. After each annealing treatment, the modes and their effective refractive indices were measured at 632.8 nm by a prism coupling system. The near-field intensity distribution of the zeroth-order mode was recorded by using an end-face coupling method. The mechanism of the planar waveguide formation is discussed by simulating the energy loss distribution and calculating the refractive index profile. It can enhance theoretical and experimental references for the development of integrated photonic devices by implantation and annealing.