Review: Fine Embossing of Novel Glasses for Photonic Integrated Circuits

Hot embossing of novel inorganic-compound glasses is a new fabrication technology for guided wave devices and circuitry. A patterned mould is pressed into the glass above its glass transition temperature (T
_g
) and replicated; cooling below T
_g
freezes-in the required pattern. The state-of-the-art is reviewed. Better than 0.1 mum-scale replication is shown for chalcogenide glasses and fabrication of a hot embossed monomode waveguide demonstrated.