Highly birefringent and monomode GaAlAs-GaAs planar optical waveguide

A novel optical waveguide exhibiting a layered core region is proposed. Owing to the original design of the core stack and form birefringence in the multilayer, a waveguide supporting both TE and TM lowest-order modes with high confinement has been obtained. It has been designed, fabricated, and characterized and presents a modal birefringence greater than 0.01, which is in good agreement with the calculated values.