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Fabrication of Photonic Crystal Fibres: A. Bjarklev Et Al., © Kluwer Academic 2003
Fabrication of Photonic Crystal Fibres: A. Bjarklev Et Al., © Kluwer Academic 2003
Fabrication of Photonic Crystal Fibres: A. Bjarklev Et Al., © Kluwer Academic 2003
4.1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of producing optical fibres from a single low-loss material with
microscopic air holes goes back to the early days of optical fibre technology,
and already in 1974 Kaiser et al. [4.1] reported the first results on single-
material silica optical fibres. In the early days - as well as today - the key
issues have been to obtain a desired fibre structure for a given application,
and maintain this structure for very long fibre lengths. It will, generally, be
needed that the fibre attenuation is kept at a rather low level, and the
acceptable attenuation level will be given by the specific application. In this
chapter, we will address the fundamental issues of fabrication of photonic
crystal fibres, by first discussing the most commonly used preform
fabrication method. Secondly, we will report details about the fibre drawing
and coating procedure. Furthermore, we will discuss how additional doping
techniques are needed for providing hybrid fibre types (such as the hole-
assisted lightguide fibre (HALF) [4.6]) combining the approach of micro-
structuring with index-raised doped glass or active dopants such as rare-earth
ions needed for new amplifiers and lasers. The chapter will also shortly
address the issues of photonic crystal fibres in low-melting-point glasses and
polymers.