Glass-ceramics for photonics: Laser material processing

Transparent glass-ceramics, activated by luminescent species, present an important class of photonic materials because their specific optical, spectroscopic and structural properties. Several top-down and bottom-up techniques have been developed for transparent glass ceramic fabrication. Among them, laser material processing plays an important role and many significant results have been obtained in the field of waveguide glass ceramics fabrication. Here, after a short description of the state of art regarding laser material processing for glass ceramics, we report on the specific use of CO2 laser for the fabrication of transparent glass ceramic waveguides.