Chalcogenide glass-based three-dimensional photonic crystals

AsSeTe chalcogenide glasses are materials that are photosensitive and have a large refractive index. These properties make these glasses particularly suitable for the fabrication of photonic crystals. We present a way to build three-dimensional photonic structures from chalcogenide glasses using vapor deposition and direct holographic writing. We show that this technique is intrinsically self-aligned, providing a simple way to build layer-by-layer photonic crystals and a four-layer structure demonstrating the principle of the technique. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)03846-8].