Chalcogenide glass optical fibre, process for producing a preform therefor and process for drawing the fibre therefrom

摘要

A process for producing a preform for a chalcogenide glass fiber which comprises inserting a cladding tube having contained therein a chalcogenide glass rod for core into a quartz tube having at its bottom a nozzle having an aperture smaller than the outer diameter of the cladding tube, locally heating the bottom of the quartz tube and pulling the preform compositing said cladding tube and glass rod for core through the nozzle of the said quartz tube. Also disclosed is a process for producing a chalcogenide glass fiber by heating and drawing the preform thus obtained, by which processes the devitrification of glass and the generation of bubbles in the core glass or at the core glass-cladding glass interface can be prevented and the adhesion between the core glass and the cladding glass can be improved. In particular, when the glass material for core does not contain Ge, a chalcogenide glass fiber having such a core-cladding structure that the transmission loss of the glass fiber when infrared light pass through the fiber is small and the mechanical strength is high.