QUEBEC CITY -- INO is proud to announce the capability to manufacture aluminum coated optical fibers. Aluminum coated fibers greatly enhance the tensile strength of the fibers and allows operation of the fibers at extremely high temperatures. In harsh environments, damage to these fibers is sharply reduced when compared to conventional coated fibers. Aluminum coated fibers also prevent any outgasing which can be hazardous when using acrylate coated fibers in clean environments. Reliability of high power transmission in optical components is vastly improved when using aluminum coated fibers. In applications such as Raman amplification requiring optical powers superior to 1 W, the acrylate coating of fibers tends to deteriorate and eventually break rendering the optical components inoperable. The aluminum coating can be made on our rare-earth-doped fibers or any other of our specialty fibers. The thickness of the aluminum coating is typically around 22 µm for cladding diameters of 125 µm. Fusion splicing aluminum coated fibers can be made easy by using over-the-counter chemical agents in order to facilitate the removal of the aluminum coating.INO