Experimental study of DC Kerr effect of chalcogenide glass film by free space coupling method

Chalcogenide glass is an important nonlinear optical material that has attracted much attention in the areas of integrated photonics, supercontinuum sources, and all-optical switches in recent years. However, the current research mainly focuses on the nonlinear effect excited by light, and the research on its properties under the action of a DC field is still deficient. Here, a metal-cladding optical waveguide, which is composed of a chalcogenide glass film coated on a glass substrate, is presented to analyze the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) effect of the chalcogenide glass film. The DC Kerr coefficient and the whole components of the QEO tensor of the sample were experimentally determined by the free space coupling method.