Abstract

In recent years, waveguide studies have played an active role in the telecommunication industry. High doping concentrations are essential in the manufacture of short and compact optical amplifiers, yet quenching can reduce the performance of the amplifier. Sol-gel chemistry, combined with the dip-coating method is a means to develop rare-earth doped planar waveguides for such integrated optics components. The sol-gel process involves three main steps: first, a metal alkoxide (Si-alkoxide) in alcohol-based medium undergoes hydrolysis at a predetermined pH; the next step involves condensation, where Si-OH tetrahedra linkages occur and eventually result in an SiO 2 network. The third step involves solvent evaporation to eliminate residual organics and hydroxyl groups within the pores of the gel. This thesis reports on the luminescence properties of Eu 3+ and Tb 3+ within the SiO 2 -TiO 2 host prepared via the sol-gel method with both H 2 O and D 2 O hydrolyzed systems. Sol-gel synthesis and dip-coating methods were used to develop a planar waveguide for a 5 mol % europium sample in the aforementioned host.