Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus for fabricating an optical fiber, which comprises a furnace for melting a sealed preform assembly to draw an uncoated optical fiber, a coater for coating the uncoated optical fiber, a capstan for drawing the optical fiber from the optical fiber preform by applying a drawing force, an adjoiner for holding a primary optical fiber preform inserted centrally into an overcladding tube with an equidistant space between the outer surface of the primary optical fiber preform and the inner surface of the overcladding tube, and a preform positioner for supporting the sealed preform assembly in a specified position with respect to the furnace.

Abstract: An optical fiber for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) communications, includes: an inner core having a predetermined refractive index, formed to a first predetermined radius from a central axis of the optical fiber, an outer core having a refractive index which is lower than the refractive index of the inner core and gets linearly smaller from its inner side to its outer side, formed on an outer side of the inner core to have a second predetermined radius, and a cladding formed on an outer side of the outer core to have a third predetermined radius.

Abstract: There are provided an optical fiber rod overcladding apparatus and method, and an optical fiber drawing method. In the preform rod overcladding method, a preform rod is clamped in a top chuck and leveled, and a glass tube is mounted in a bottom chuck and leveled. The preform rod is coaxially inserted into a glass tube. Then, the glass tube is preheated by the furnace and heated by the burner until the glass tube reaches a softening point. The preform rod is completely sealed in the glass tube by sucking air in a clearance between the preform rod and the glass tube by application of a negative vacuum pressure. Thus, a preform is completed.