BlazePhotonics Has Hollow FiberBlazePhotonics Has Hollow Fiber

BlazePhotonics announces the first commercially available hollow-core fiber designed to guide light in the visible spectrum

December 19, 2003

2 Min Read

BATH, U.K. -- BlazePhotonics announced today the launch of the first commercially available hollow core fiber designed to guide light in the visible spectrum.

Until now, hollow core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has only been available for infrared operating wavelengths. BlazePhotonics is now able to offer high-quality hollow core PCF designed for the visible spectrum. Two types of fibers are currently available for sale in evaluation quantities; one guiding in the red and the other guiding in the green parts of the spectrum. Attenuation is in the order of 0.7 dB/m for the green-guiding, and 0.5 dB/m for the red-guiding fiber at their respective center operating wavelengths of 520nm and 630nm. The fibers are protected by a single layer acrylate coating, have outer diameters of 100ìm and 75ìm and can be stripped and cleaved like ordinary solid fibers.

Hollow core or photonic bandgap fibers guide light in a hollow core, surrounded by acladding formed by a periodic arrangement of air holes in fused silica glass. Since only a small fraction of the light propagates in glass, the effect of material nonlinearity is significantly reduced and these fibers do not suffer from the same limitations on loss as conventional fibres made from solid material alone. Furthermore, unlike conventional fibers, in which material dispersion plays an important role, the dispersion properties of hollow core fibers are dominated by waveguide dispersion, and it becomes possible to achieve near-zero dispersion at any wavelength, including those in the visible spectrum.

While hollow core Photonic Crystal Fibers hold the promise to become the next generation ultra-low loss transmission fibers, in the immediate future they find important applications in power delivery, sensors and nonlinear optics. The green-guiding fiber, for example, is intended for the delivery of pulses and CW radiation from frequency doubled Nd3+-lasers, while the red-guiding fiber may find application in new gas-based non-linear optics devices and sensors.

Fibers with different central operating wavelengths are available on request, and further future developments will include the reduction of attenuation, dispersion and dispersion slope, as well as improvements in the power handling capability of these fibers.

BlazePhotonics Ltd.

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