Optical glass fibre

Hasegawa A 1983 Amplification and reshaping of optical solitons in glass fibre-IV Appl. Phys. Lett. 8 650-2... 

The key innovations in turning optical waveguides (fibres) into a successful commercial product were made by R.D. Maurer in the research laboratories of the Corning Glass Company in New York State. This company was also responsible for introducing another family of products, crystalline ceramics made from glass precursors - glass-ceramics. The story of this development carries many lessons for... 

Close to silica fibres are silicate fibres drawn from optical glasses. Silicate fibres are typically applicable in the visible spectral region. Their optical losses in the visible region usually reach much higher values than silica fibres - at least 102dB/km. On the other hand, the refractive index can be tailored in a large interval (from 1.5 for the BK-class to 1.95 for the... 

The refractive index is the most important optical property and its effect in determining the appearance of the polymer composite has already been referred to above. Amorphous fillers such as glass fibres and beads have only one refractive index, but most mineral fillers are crystalline and have anisotropic crystal structures resulting in a number of different indices, and this can cause complex and undesirable interference effects [27]. 

As a large percentage of current optical sensors involve optical fibres in certain shapes, it is important to discuss the status of fibre R D. Glass fibres... 

Sherwood Stevens (1965) examined glass-fibre filters from personal air samplers worn by workers in the Radiochemical Laboratories at Harwell. The filters were mounted in an Araldite mixture which rendered them transparent and were covered by autoradiographic stripping film. After exposure and development, the samples were viewed with a high-power optical microscope. Particles were sized, and their activity determined from the number of alpha tracks coming from them. An extremely wide range of particle sizes, 0.2 to 90 m, was found. The smaller particles were plutonium compounds or alloys, and the larger were inert particles with one or more small Pu particles attached to them. An example of the latter is shown in Fig. 5.3. 

Optical sensors display several advantages over electronic sensors. Since photons rather than electrons carry the information, they are almost immune to electrical interference. Usually the optical components are made from glass chips or fibre-optic cable fibres, giving them excellent mechanical and thermal stability and often, moreover, a high chemical resistivity. Finally the use of glass, especially fibre-optic, fibres helps to minimise the size and weight of these sensors. Optical sensors, especially fibre-optic sensors have been the subject of several recent reviews [116-120]. 

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