Low-Loss Fiber Waveguides.
Abstract
This report summarizes efforts to fabricate low-loss fiber waveguides with potential loss near 0.001 dB/km. To develop such low-loss fibers requires producing fiber from unconventional, non-oxide materials such as the metal halides or some special fluoride glasses. Specifically, our approach has been to use alkali and thallium halides because these crystalline materials have, in the case of KC1, some of the lowest bulk losses measured to date at IR wavelengths. The first method used to fabricate KC1 fiber was extrusion. Although this method had worked well for the thallium halides, it proved unsuccessful for KC1 and other alkali halides. In every case, extruded KC1 (or CsI and PbC12) fiber had an irregular, fish-scale surface, from which we concluded that extrusion techniques should be abandonde for the alkali halides. Hot rolling was used to make one 50-cm-long KC1 fiber with improved surface quality (compared to extrusion). Studies of the optical properties of our fibers and bulk materials concentrated on determining the scattering and absorption contributions to the total attenuation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA091558
Entities
People
- James A. Harrington
Organizations
- HRL Laboratories