the system here is based on a “rod-in-tube” approach. Although the core material can be incorporated in the form of powder, 14–17 14. The system has been used to fabricate glass-clad preforms with semiconductor-cores, 12 12. The preform fabrication system described in detail in this work is based on a simple one-beam optical arrangement and integrated into a rotating glass lathe. In these studies, fibers were drawn from 2 to 5 mm diameter preforms using 50 and 300 W CO 2 lasers, respectively. As such, by the late 1970s, a few attempts had been made to develop an optical glass fiber drawing technique based on a CO 2 laser. At that time, a newly developed carbon dioxide (CO 2) laser technology seemed like a good fit for fiber drawing due to the high absorption properties of silica glass at these laser wavelengths. Saifi, Optical Fiber Transmission II: Technical Digest ( Optical Society of America, 1977), p. Laser-based solutions have been explored previously when these benefits gained a lot of traction within the research community during the early days of fiber manufacturing. that facilitate the production of fiber preforms containing unique core materials, such as metal, glass-ceramic, or semiconductors. This is beneficial when working with dissimilar materials but also minimizes water diffusion and oxidization 4 4. Additionally, a highly localized hot-zone in combination with a short processing time ensures reduced thermal interaction between the core and cladding. A laser-based solution also enables a more sophisticated level of control over the processing temperature and tapering dynamics. One advantage of using a laser-based furnace is the possibility to create small preforms with minimal material wastage and short start-up time suitable for rapid prototyping. Specialty fibers drawn from these preforms exhibit low-loss and show good optical performance.įor specialty fiber preform fabrication, laser-based heating provides several advantages compared to well-established solutions that typically utilize hydrogen burners or industrial furnaces to reshape the glass. The process of using these aspects to fabricate optical fiber preforms made of highly dissimilar materials and of various core-to-cladding ratios is discussed. Relevant aspects of preform manufacturing, such as glass cutting, splicing, tapering, and overcladding, are described in detail. The performance of the system is evaluated, and the ability to maintain a desired preform processing temperature is demonstrated. This is addressed by construction of an enclosed and fully motorized system to enable preform processing in a dry air environment. The CO laser output power and its beam quality are affected by absorption of the laser radiation by water vapor present in the surrounding air. The laser heating is accomplished via a single-beam optical arrangement integrated into a rotating glass lathe. It is not uncommon for individual spools to contain miles or kilometers of optical fiber.We report the development of a specialty optical fiber preform fabrication system based on carbon monoxide (CO) laser heating. The tractor mechanism slowly pulls the fiber from the heated preform blank and is precisely controlled by using a laser micrometer to measure the diameter of the fiber and feed the information back to the tractor mechanism.įibers are pulled from the blank at a rate of up to 66 ft/s (20 m/s) and the finished product is wound onto the spool. The operator threads the strand through a series of coating cups (buffer coatings) and ultraviolet light curing ovens onto a tractor-controlled spool. As it drops, it cools and forms a thread. The blank gets lowered into a graphite furnace (3,452 to 3,992 degrees Fahrenheit or 1,900 to 2,200 degrees Celsius) and the tip gets melted until a molten glob falls down by gravity. Once the preform blank has been tested, it gets loaded into a fiber drawing tower.
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