Specialty optical fiber fabrication: fiber draw tower based on a CO laser furnace

Abstract

An experimental, laboratory-scale optical fiber drawing tower based on CO laser heating has been developed and used to fabricate speciality optical fiber. The CO laser was utilized in a symmetric four beam heating system. The localized and responsive heating time of the laser-based furnace was beneficial for manufacturing crystalline core fibers, specifically, silicon core optical fibers. Moreover, the specific absorption properties of the CO laser radiation in silica have been evaluated with the aid of finite element modeling. In comparison to the more traditional C O 2 laser, CO lasers were found to improve temperature uniformity and heating times while minimizing surface evaporation.