Optical fibers drawing processes

Fig. 4. Schematic view of optical fiber drawing and coating process. (From Ref. vvith permission)...

Light wave technologies provide a number of special challenges for polymeric materials. Polymer fibers offer the best potential for optical communications in local area network (LAN) applications, because their large core size makes it relatively cheap to attach connectors to them. There is a need for polymer fibers that have low losses and that can transmit the bandwidths needed for LAN applications the aciylate and methacrylate polymers now under study have poor loss and bandwidth performance. Research on monomer purification, polymerization to precise molecular-size distributions, and weU-controlled drawing processes is relevant here. There is also a need for precision plastic molding processes for mass prodnction of optical fiber connectors and splice hardware. A tenfold reduction in the cost of fiber and related devices is necessaiy to make the utilization of optical fiber and related devices economical for local area networks and tlie telecommunications loop. 

Fiber glass-reinforced plastic tanks, 24 299 Fiber grating, 11 150-151 Fiber length (FL), 18 148 Fiber manufacture, sodium bisulfite in, 23 673 Fiber-matrix bonding, 26 771-772 Fiber modification, chemical, 16 14 Fibernodes, 11 595 Fiber-optic probes, 16 524 Fiber optics, 11 128-162, 15 469 attenuation in, 11 132-133 dispersion in, 11 134-135 fiber drawing in, 11 141-145 fiber strength in, 11 141-145 history of, 11 128-131 inside processes for, 11 136-140 near-infrared, 23 141 optical amplifiers with, 11 145-146 optical fiber fabrication for,... 

Optical elements, liquid crystalline materials in, 15 116—117 Optical emission spectra, 14 833-837 plutonium, 19 671—673 Optical emission spectroscopy (OES), archaeological materials, 5 742 Optical fiber(s), 13 391-392 24 618 defects in, 11 145 drawing of, 11 141-145 fabrication of, 11 135-141 health care applications for, 13 397 overcladding of, 11 144 remote measurements using, 14 234 in sensors, 22 270-271 sol-gel processing of, 11 144-145 strength of, 11 141-145 vitreous silica in, 22 444 Optical fiber sensors, 12 614-616 Optical germanium, 12 556... 

Figure 7.50 Schematic illustration of MCVD processing of optical fiber, including (a) tube setup, (b) deposition, (c) collapse, and (d) fiber drawing. Reprinted, by permission, from J. B. MacChesney, J. Mater. Ed., 11(14), 343 (1989). Copyright 1989 by Materials Research Laboratory.

Optical fibers are usually made of glass in a process that involves heating a glass preform and then drawing the... 

There are many methods to measure the RIP of the preform and the fiber. However, the RIP might be changed by the heat-drawing process, but some fabrication methods, such as coextrusion, can produce optical fibers directly from raw materials, not via preforms (see Chapter 5). In addition, we are interested in the final RIP of the fiber and not in the RIP of the preform during fabrication. Thus, this section focuses on measurements of the RIP of the fiber. 

B.9 Draw Resonance in Coextrusion Fiber Spinning. Coextrusion fiber spinning is an industrial process used for the production of plastic optical fibers. Based... 

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