Polarisation-maintaining fibre using a novel glass system

Author

Ko, Y.T. ; DiGiovanni, D.J. ; MacChesney, J.B. ; Simpson, J.R.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Volume

26

Issue

13

fYear

1990

fDate

6/21/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

876

Lastpage

878

Abstract

A new glass dopant system, AlPO₄ is used to form the stress-producing regions of a polarisation-maintaining optical fibre. The advantages of this glass system are that it can match the refractive index of silica and does not have a fundamental absorption peak near the optical frequencies of interest, allowing it to be placed in close proximity to the fibre core to optimise birefringence. This material was used for the cladding of a preform, which was then flattened to yield an elliptical fibre upon drawing. This fibre demonstrated an extinction ratio at 1.3 mu m of 42.5 dB for a 10 m length and 22 dB for 500 m for h=1.3*10^-5 m^-1. The beat length at lambda =0.488 mu m was about 9 mm, corresponding to a modal birefringence of 5.3*10^-5.

Keywords

aluminosilicate glasses; birefringence; light polarisation; optical fibres; optical glass; phosphosilicate glasses; refractive index; 0.488 micron; 1.3 micron; 10 m; 500 m; SiO₂:AlPO₄; beat length; birefringence; cladding; elliptical fibre; extinction ratio; fibre core; polarisation-maintaining optical fibre; preform; refractive index; stress-producing regions;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electronics Letters

Publisher

iet

ISSN

0013-5194

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/el:19900573

Filename

82822