Study of Temperature and Time Dependent Performance Alteration of Silver Ion-exchanged Waveguides in Glass

Single-mode glass waveguides for a wavelength of 1310 nm were designed in two different glasses with single-mode optical fiber coupling loss of 0.3 dB per interface. The temperature dependent diffusivity of both glasses is studied to explore the thermal alteration of the refractive index profile which can lead to less mode confinement and an increase in optical fiber coupling loss over time. For the model, diffusivity data is collected at higher temperature and extrapolated down to operation temperature range with a peak temperature of 110 degrees C. The data is verified with experimental data from long term experiments. We study the refractive index change of both glasses and the impact on optical performance over time. One of the selected glasses has almost no alteration and is meeting the data center lifetime requirements of five years. Waveguides were fabricated in both glasses and the lowest propagation loss was measured to be 0.048 dB/cm at a wavelength of 1310 nm.