Intermediate infrared optical fiber and manufacturing method thereof

Abstract

The invention is suitable for the technical field of optical fibers and provides a manufacturing method of an intermediate infrared optical fiber. The intermediate infrared optical fiber is provided with a quartz cladding and a fiber core wrapped in the cladding and made of an intermediate infrared glass material. The manufacturing method comprises two steps of: firstly, manufacturing a hollow optical fiber perform by using a PCVD (Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition) method and drawing wires to manufacture a hollow optical fiber; and secondly, injecting molten intermediate infrared glass into the hollow optical fiber. The cladding of the intermediate infrared optical fiber provided by the invention is made of quartz, and the traditional optical fiber cutting and welding equipment can be directly used for conveniently and rapidly operating when the intermediate infrared optical fiber is in fusion splicing with a quartz optical fiber, therefore, the fusion splicing is easier; a fiber core is made of intermediate infrared glass, such as chalcogenide glass, telluride glass, fluoride glass and other materials with high nonlinear coefficients and is suitable for nonlinear application such as generation of intermediate infrared broadband supercontinuum; and the intermediate infrared optical fiber can realize a fully optical intermediate infrared broadband light source by utilizing Er or Tm doped optical fiber laser pumping.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of optical fiber technology, and in particular relates to a mid-infrared photon optical fiber capable of low-loss fusion splicing with common silica optical fibers and a manufacturing method thereof. Background technique [0002] Because mid-infrared glass has a relatively high light transmission wavelength range (generally 2-16μm), and nonlinear refractive index (two orders of magnitude higher than ordinary quartz glass), it is used in mid-infrared laser conduction, nonlinear optics and other fields. Extensive, such as medical surgery (such as laser ablation surgery), thermal image transmission, or developed into a mid-infrared ultra-broadband light source. The mid-infrared ultra-broadband light source also has high technical content and broad application prospects, and can be applied in many fields such as OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography, optical coherence tomography), active hyperspectral imaging, molecular spect...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0003] However, the general mid-infrared optical fiber has the characteristics of low softening temperature and brittle quality, so it is difficult to weld with silica optical fiber. This is because the melting point of general fused silica glass reaches above 1800 degrees, while the melting point of general mid-infrared glass is only a few hundred degrees. Great difference

General erbium (or thulium) doped fiber lasers are made of silica fiber, it is difficult to fuse these lasers with mid-infrared optical fibers, and then produce an all-fiber mid-infrared ultra-broadband light source, which limits its practical application

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