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Hollow core fibre production speeded
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17/01/2008
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Scientists have discovered a way of speeding up the production of hollow core optical fibres, which they believe will allow faster and more powerful computing and telecommunications technologies.
“This is a major improvement in the development of hollow-core fibre technology,” said Professor Jonathan Knight from the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials in the University of Bath’s Department of Physics.
“In standard optical fibres, light travels in a small cylindrical core of glass running down the fibre length. The fact that light has to travel through glass limits them in many ways. For example, the glass can be damaged if there is too much light. Also, the glass causes short pulses of light to spread out in a blurring effect that makes them less well defined. This limits its usefulness in telecommunications and other applications.
“Hence, fibres in which light travels in air down a hollow core hold great promise for a next generation of optical fibres with performance enhanced in many ways.”
The highly detailed nature of these fibres means they have been difficult to fabricate and they can only work for a limited range of wavelengths. However, the procedure developed by the Bath photonics group shows how a tiny change to these fibres – narrowing the wall of glass around the large central hole by 100nm – broadens the range of wavelengths which can be transmitted.
The team achieved this by omitting some of the most difficult steps in the fabrication procedure, reducing the time required to make the fibres from around a week to a single day.
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Author
Graham Pitcher
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