Abstract: A random array of holes is created in an optical fiber by gas generated during fiber drawing. The gas forms bubbles which are drawn into long, microscopic holes. The gas is created by a gas generating material such as silicon nitride. Silicon nitride oxidizes to produce nitrogen oxides when heated. The gas generating material can alternatively be silicon carbide or other nitrides or carbides. The random holes can provide cladding for optical confinement when located around a fiber core. The random holes can also be present in the fiber core. The fibers can be made of silica. The present random hole fibers are particularly useful as pressure sensors since they experience a large wavelength dependant increase in optical loss when pressure or force is applied.

Abstract: A random array of holes is created in an optical fiber by gas generated during fiber drawing. The gas forms bubbles which are drawn into long, microscopic holes. The gas is created by a gas generating material such as silicon nitride. Silicon nitride oxidizes to produce nitrogen oxides when heated. The gas generating material can alternatively be silicon carbide or other nitrides or carbides. The random holes can provide cladding for optical confinement when located around a fiber core. The random holes can also be present in the fiber core. The fibers can be made of silica. The present random hole fibers are particularly useful as pressure sensors since they experience a large wavelength dependant increase in optical loss when pressure or force is applied.

Abstract: Optical fiber preforms which can be drawn into optical fibers of desired dimensions are fabricated by applying a vacuum to a cladding tube and drawing molten glass from a crucible into a bore of the cladding tube while a portion of the cladding tube is within a furnace preferably through a small hole in the top of the furnace. The method and apparatus are particularly applicable to highly non-linear fiber (HNLF) glasses and highly doped or rare earth glasses since materials therein are generally expensive and only a small quantity of molten glass is required but can be applied to virtually any optical fiber construction where the core glass has a lower melting or softening point than that of the cladding tube. Sources of contamination, breakage and other preform defects are substantially avoided and toxic substances, if present are readily confined.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for non-destructively measuring dispersion-zero wavelengths along an optical fiber makes use of a four-photon-mixing technique to generate mixed, amplified, idler signals at positions or ranges along the fiber. The dispersion zero wavelengths are then calculated using the wavelengths of the generated idler signals after taking into account inaccuracies due to higher order phenomena.

Abstract: An optical fiber communications system with Raman amplification of the signal radiation comprises a broadband pump radiation source, or, preferably a multiplicity of pump radiation sources. The sources are selected to result in a pump radiation spectrum such that pump radiation intensity in the fiber core is less than a critical intensity I.sub.c. In particular, the average intensity of pump radiation in a first spectral interval, centered on any wavelength .lambda..sub.p in the pump radiation spectrum and of width equal to the Brillouin line width of the fiber at .lambda..sub.p, is to be less than that average intensity in the first spectral interval that results in conversion of 10% of the radiation in the first spectral interval to stimulated Brillouin radiation. Use of a multiplicity of pump sources not only can reduce pump noise and pump depletion due to stimulated Brillouin scattering, but typically also can result in enhanced system reliability and lower cost.

Abstract: A Fresnel lens is fabricated by depositing concentric layers of first and second materials in alternation on a substrate surface. The substrate and deposited layers are then drawn down to provide a predetermined Fresnel lens zone structure.

Abstract: A Fresnel lens is fabricated by depositing concentric layers of first and second materials in alternation on a substrate surface. The substrate and deposited layers are then drawn down to provide a predetermined Fresnel lens zone structure.

Abstract: The invention provides a method for making an optical fiber with a uniformly thin section of cladding. A preform having a core and at least one cladding layer is first made. The preform is prepared by cutting the preform so that the core is close to the surface of the preform. An optical fiber is pulled from the cut preform so the core is close to the surface of the optical fiber. The fiber may have cladding further removed by etching. A material selective etch may be used to make a protruding core fiber. Etching may be done on the preform before pulling the fiber.

Abstract: A device using a birefringent optical fiber having periodic integral perturbations with the period equal to the birefringence beat length being useful as, for example, a polarization rotator and an optical filter.

Abstract: Selected portions of the interior surface of a substrate tube, or of the cladding or core layers deposited on the interior surface of the substrate tube, are treated by one or more process steps such as shaping, diffusing, leaching, or depositing. Patterning processes such as photolithography and lift-off are employed to define the selected portions. The resulting core and/or cladding layers of the fiber can be made to have a variety of geometric shapes and composition profiles useful, for example, in realizing birefringent fibers and multiple-core fibers. Also described is the similar treating of metal layers and the incorporation of such layers into the fiber.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a technique for producing polarization-preserving and single polarization optical fibers. As disclosed, high birefringence is introduced into the preform by deforming the fiber preform such that a cladding layer becomes flat and highly conformable, while the core remains hard and substantially round. In particular, a cladding layer with a relatively low melting point is utilized such that when the preform is heated the cladding becomes liquified while the core remains solid. The preform may then be deformed so that the cladding layer is substantially flattened. Standard drawing techniques may then be utilized to form polarization-preserving fibers and single polarization fibers from the preform.

Abstract: An inline single-mode fiber attenuator (10) is disclosed which may be formed by a tandem combination of a birefringent polarization-preserving fiber (12) and a single polarization fiber (14). The birefringent fiber functions as a variable wave plate and the single polarization fiber functions as a fiber polarizer. By continuously changing the local birefringence of the birefringent fiber with, for example, tension, pressure, or temperature, the phase difference between the two polarization components of light traveling through the birefringent fiber is continuously modified. The difference in phase causes suppression of one of the polarization components as it enters the fiber polarizer and, therefore, the output of the fiber polarizer, the sum of the two polarizations, is attenuated. The attenuator may be tuned by changing the local birefringence of the birefringent fiber.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a single-mode single-polarization optical fiber which is capable of functioning as an in-line fiber polarizer which allows only one polarization of the fundamental mode to propagate along the fiber. In structure, the fiber comprises a central core region (10) and a cladding region (12) which is substantially in contact with the central core region. The various regions are formed such that the refractive index of an outer cladding region is greater than the refractive index of an inner cladding region but less than that of the core region. The arrangement of the present invention produces stress-birefringence between the cladding regions and the central core region sufficient to split the two orthogonal polarizations (n.sub..parallel. and n.sub..perp.) of the fundamental mode such that the desired polarization propagates freely and the undesired polarization is attenuated by tunneling through the cladding layers.

Abstract: Selected portions of the interior surface of a substrate tube, or of the cladding or core layers deposited on the interior surface of the substrate tube, are treated by one or more process steps such as shaping, diffusing, leaching, or depositing. Patterning processes such as photolithography and lift-off are employed to define the selected portions. The resulting core and/or cladding layers of the fiber can be made to have a variety of geometric shapes and composition profiles useful, for example, in realizing birefringent fibers and multiple-core fibers. Also described is the similar treating of metal layers and the incorporation of such layers into the fiber.

Abstract: A method of making a polarization-preserving optical fiber is disclosed having a first step of fabricating a substrate tube to have a wall of nonuniform thickness, the nonuniformity in thickness being arranged about the wall of the substrate tube so that maxima and minima in wall thickness lie in planes which are substantially orthogonal. This first step is followed by deposition of cladding layers and a core layer within the substrate tube. The substrate is then collapsed and the fiber drawn therefrom. The nonuniform wall thickness of the substrate tube operates together with differential thermal contraction of the layers to produce stress-induced birefringence in the fiber, which birefringence provides a polarization-preserving optical fiber.