Optical fibre hollow

The prevalently used waveguides are optical fibres. Fibre technology is standard in the UV to near-IR, but also some fibres for light transport in the mid-IR have been developed. An overview of different IR fibre materials and their characteristic performance parameters is given in Table 1. More details can be found in a number of reviews focused on the material properties of IR transmitting optical fibres26 31. For some applications, as an alternative to optical fibres also hollow waveguides may be used. 

Temelkuran B, Hart SD, Benoit G, Joannopoulos JD, Pink Y (2002) Wavelength-scalable hollow optical fibres with large photonic bandgaps for C02 laser transmission. Nature 420 650-653... 

Savage, C. M., Marksteiner, S., and Zoller, P. (1993). Atomic waveguides and cavities from hollow optical fibres. In Fundamental of quantum optics (ed. F. Ehlotzky), vol. 3. pp. 60-74. Springer, Berlin. 

Fibre optic-based flow-through optical biosensors The dramatic advances in fibre optic development in die last decade have promoted construction of sensors where radiation, whether emitted, transmitted or reflected, is conducted fi-om the sample to the detection system. The wide variety of available optical waveguide types (solid rods, hollow cylinders, micro-planar geometries) has been used with varying success in sensor development. 

The morphology of ordered mesostructured carbons is another important factor with respect to their practical applications. Various macroscopic morphologies are required, for example, films (in sensor, separation and optical applications), uniformly sized spheres (in chromatography) or transparent monoliths. Using suitable synthesis strategies, it is possible to control the external shape of the templated mesoporous carbon materials to generate powders, films and membranes, spheres, hollow spheres, rods, fibres, nanowires, nanotubes and monoliths. 

Fig. 3. Composite loss spectra for some common IR fibre optics ZBLAN fluoride glass SC sapphire, chalcogenide glass, PC AgBrCl, and hollow glass waveguide plot reproduced from Harrington, 2010.

The third part contains five chapters, with a focus on integrating processes and integrated structures. Chapter 10 provides an overview of the developments and key issues in fibre-optic smart textile composites. Chapter 11 presents hollow fibre membranes for gas separation. Chapter 12 describes embroidery as one way of integrating fibre-formed components into textile structures. Chapters 13 and 14 are on wearable electronic and photonic technologies. Chapter 13 provides insights on adaptive and responsive textile structures (ARTS). Chapter 14 describes the development of an intelligent snowmobile suit. 

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