Multi-waveguide excitation in fs laser written waveguide arrays

We introduce a new technique to excite multiple waveguides in fs laser written waveguide arrays. Using a microstructured grating, we were able to couple almost all of the power of the laser beam into multiple waveguides in one- and two-dimensional lattices. Tilting the sample a defined phase shift between adjacent waveguides can be obtained, which allows anomalous diffraction and refraction to be studied.