Chalcogenide glass thin films and planar waveguides

Over the past decade, we have carried out a comprehensive development program to produce high-purity Ga:La:S and Ge:S glasses and further process these glasses into thin films. In this paper, we discuss the general properties of these glass systems and the techniques used to obtain thin films. We demonstrate the ability to deposit high-quality films ranging in thickness from nanometers to several millimeters by several methods, including chemical vapor deposition technique, a technique not usually applied to chalcogenide glasses.