Void Engineering in Silica Glass for Ultralow Optical Scattering Loss

Abstract

Optical losses in silica glass fibers remain a challenge in their applications. The main contributor to optical attenuation is Rayleigh scattering. This review discusses the recent studies and findings on voids in silica glass and their effects on the optical loss. Through experimental studies of pressure-quenching on glass at the melting temperature, void size shrunk, and the optical loss was reduced to approximately half of that of conventional optical fibers at 0.2 GPa. Our modeling results predicted that further reduction was expected, credited to the optimization of the glass network, called topological pruning, under high compressive pressures of up to 4 GPa.