Recent Research on Photosensitive Amorphous Materials for Optical Devices

Photosensitive amorphous materials are attractive for the formation of several optical elements by a specific laser beam irradiation. For example the optical fiber gratings prepared by UV laser irradiation are one of the key elements for the recent worldwide progress of wavelength division mutiplexing optical fiber network. This paper reviews the representative studies on the photosensitive materials and the origin of photosensitivity in amorphous oxide materials.