One attractive route to low-cost integrated optical components is the use of direct UV writing. This technique may be applied to a wide range of materials including silica-on-silicon wafers, compound oxide glasses, directly bonded glass composites and GLS. This presentation will focus on the first of these material systems - silica-on-silicon. This has a number of attractive features including fibre compatibility, industrial acceptance, stability and most importantly for our work a photosensitivity depends light intensity and not the thermal effects found in many materials. Recent developments of the UV writing technique at Southampton have allowed the realisation of high quality Bragg gratings in silica-on-silicon by simultaneous writing of the channel waveguides and gratings (the direct grating writing technique). This approach together with wavelength detuning, allows an unprecedented range of wavelengths to be written under software control. Latest results will be presented covering laser operation in Neodymium doped channels, small angle couplers, sensors based on planar gratings and liquid crystal tunable devices
