Abstract:
A rare earth element-doped multiple-core optical fiber has an outer cladding layer and a plurality of cores each covered with a primary cladding layer. The cores are positioned substantially on a central axis of the outer cladding layer and separated with a predetermined spacing S from each other by the primary cladding layer. The outer cladding layers are made of SiO.sub.2, or SiO.sub.2 added with a dopant like F, Ge, etc. The primary cladding layer is made of SiO.sub.2 doped with Er, or SiO.sub.2 doped with Er and F together and formed to have a predetermined thickness of 1.0 .mu.m.about.1.5 .mu.m to form the predetermined spacing S. The Soot glass rods for cores and primary cladding layers are immersed in an Er-compound solution, then picked up, dried and consolidated to form Er--Al co-doped SiO.sub.2 --GeO.sub.2 transparent glass rods. The glass rods are inserted into a quartz tube and collapsed by heat to fabricate an optical fiber preform rod, then heated to be drawn to provide an Er-doped multiple-core optical fiber.
Abstract:
An optical amplifier which includes an optical fiber having an erbium doped core surrounded by cladding, a pump for pumping the fiber with pump light at a pump wavelength coupled to the fiber, input means for inputting a signal to be amplified to the amplifier and output means for outputting an amplified signal from the amplifier. The fiber has a NA higher than 0.2. The difference in the coefficient of thermal expansion of the core adjacent the core/cladding interface and the coefficient of thermal expansion of the cladding at at least one radius less than 2 .mu.m from said interface is lower than a predetermined value, corresponding to a ratio of erbium loss to background loss, at said pump wavelength, and greater than a minimum ratio of about 20 when erbium loss is 0.15 dB/m and about 120 when erbium loss is 3.5 dB/m.
Abstract:
A manufacturing method for erbium doped silica, having a soot formation process, in which a silica glass soot is deposited on a seed rod for forming a soot preform in a porous state on the seed rod, a dopant impregnation process, wherein the soot preform is impregnated with at least an erbium compound, and a preform formation process, wherein this soot preform impregnated with a dopant is heated and rendered transparent. The dopant impregnation process is provided with an operation in which the soot preform obtained in the soot formation process is dipped in a solution containing an erbium compound, an aluminum compound, and a phosphorus compound; this is then desiccated, and soot preform which is impregnated with the erbium compound, the aluminum compound, and the phosphorus compound is obtained.
Abstract:
A glass preform for an optical fiber containing a dopant in a core portion at a high concentration is produced by providing a glass tube, forming a coating film of a sol-gel solution containing a dopant compound on an inner wall of the glass tube, vitrifying and collapsing the glass tube having the coating of the sol-gel solution to obtain a glass rod.
Abstract:
A vapor deposition method for making preforms from which optical waveguide fibers are drawn wherein at least a first precursor compound is oxidized at one oxidation site and at least a second precursor compound, which is different from the first precursor compound, is oxidized at a second oxidation site. The method is particularly applicable in cases where the first and second precursor compounds are chemically incompatible with one another or where the flow rate of the second precursor compound is substantially lower than the flow rate of the first precursor compound.
Abstract:
A process for heat sealing together two preformed glass articles preferably adapted to be nested one within the other by a technique which envisions a precise and careful conditioning and treatment of the surfaces to be heat sealed, coupled with temperature control and impressment of particular low pressure conditions as in combination promote the heat sealing joinder of the surfaces and consequently the articles together in a manner as is yieldative of an ultimate produce in which the optical as well as other properties of the preformed glass, as imparted by the compositional makeup thereof, is relatively unimpaired and therefore of high quality. This method is accomplished by a device having an elongate compartment having heaters located outside, with a base to hold the glass cylinder which has an opening connected to a vacuum source at the bottom of the compartment.
Abstract:
A manufacturing method for an optical fiber, includes: drawing, while heating in a heating furnace, a lower end of an optical fiber preform that is to be an optical fiber having a core consisting of silica glass containing a rare earth element compound. The heating furnace has a temperature profile in which a temperature of the heating furnace increases to a maximum temperature Tmax and then decreases from an upstream side of the heating furnace toward a downstream side of the heating furnace. The temperature profile has a changing point at which the temperature decreases more steeply on the downstream side from a position where the maximum temperature Tmax is reached. At the maximum temperature, a temperature of the silica glass is higher than or equal to a glass transition temperature and the silica glass is in a single phase.
Abstract:
A method for producing rare earth metal-doped quartz glass includes the steps of (a) providing a blank of the rare earth metal-doped quartz glass, and (b) homogenizing the blank by softening the blank zone by zone in a heating zone and by twisting the softened zone along a rotation axis. Some rare earth metals, however, show a discoloration of the quartz glass, which hints at an unforeseeable and undesired change in the chemical composition or possibly at an inhomogeneous distribution of the dopants. To avoid this drawback and to provide a modified method which ensures the production of rare earth metal-doped quartz glass with reproducible properties, during homogenization according to method step (b), the blank is softened under the action of an oxidizingly acting or a neutral plasma.
Abstract:
Tapered core fibers are produced using tapered core rods that can be etched or ground so that a fiber cladding has a constant diameter. The tapered core can be an actively doped core, or a passive core. One or more sleeving tubes can be collapsed onto a tapered core rod and exterior portions of the collapsed sleeving tubes can be ground to provide a constant cladding diameter in a fiber drawn from the preform.
Abstract:
Hollow ingots of transparent synthetic vitreous silica glass of external diameter greater than 400 mm and internal diameter greater than 300 mm are disclosed. The ingots are substantially free from bubbles or inclusions greater than 100 μm in diameter, have no more than 100 ppB of any individual metallic impurity, and have chlorine concentration less than 5 ppM. Also disclosed are methods for producing such ingots, in which a porous soot body of density greater than 0.4 g/cm3 is deposited on an oxidation resistant mandrel. The soot body is dehydrated on a mandrel comprising graphite, carbon fiber reinforced carbon, silicon carbide, silicon impregnated silicon carbide, silicon carbide-coated graphite or vitreous silica, either under vacuum or in the presence of a reducing gas, and then sintered to transparent pore-free glass under vacuum or in an atmosphere of helium.