From Silica Nanoparticles to the Highest Standard Telecom Fibers

Optical fiber is constantly being pushed to reach farther with lower loss. Requirements become ever-tighter, not only for the end-product, but also for the starting materials.

It all starts with the highest purity raw material which is deposited into a cylindrical soot body (step 1). After dehydration and vitrification, the silica glass cylinder is precision machined (step 2), and hot formed without the use of any forming tools such as dies (step 3) ensuring minimal degradation of purity, while still maintaining extremely tight geometrical tolerance for substrate and jacket tubes.

A very low loss core rod is manufactured by chemical vapor deposition of a higher refractive index material within, for example, an ultra-high purity F500 substrate tube (step 4). Then the resulting core rod can be jacketed with a tube or cylinder and drawn into a preform or directly into fiber (step 5).