Integrated optical filter arrays fabricated by using the combinatorial etching technique.

A combinatorial etching technique is developed to fabricate integrated narrow bandpass filters on a single substrate. It is highly efficient for fabrication of integrated filter arrays in optical regions. A monolithic filter array has been fabricated by using the technique with a two-step deposition process. The filter contains 32 elements in the near-infrared region. The relative full width at half-maximum (FWHM) sigmalambda/lambda of the filter elements is less than 0.2%. Such a narrow bandpass filter array can be utilized in many optical applications.