OPTICAL FIBER DRAWING METHOD AND DRAWING DEVICE

摘要

A drawing apparatus 1 has a drawing furnace 11 for heating and drawing an optical fiber preform 2, and a carbon heater 13 is disposed in this drawing furnace 11. The carbon heater 13 has a heating portion the length of which in a drawing direction is set to not less than 280 mm. The carbon heater 13 heats the preform so that a maximum temperature on the surface of the optical fiber preform 2 in the drawing furnace 11 becomes below 1800 DEG C. The optical fiber preform 2 is drawn in a state in which the temperature of the muffle tube 12 of the drawing furnace 11 is kept below 1800 DEG C, so that atomic arrangement in the optical fiber preform 2 becomes relatively aligned in a state of reduced randomness of atomic arrangement. This permits the optical fiber 3 to be drawn as reflecting the reduced randomness state of atomic arrangement, whereby the optical fiber 3 can be obtained with reduced Rayleigh scattering intensity and lowered transmission loss. <IMAGE>