Hundreds of meter-long low-loss silicon-core optical fiber

Maryna Kudinova (1) , Géraud Bouwmans (2) , Rémi Habert (2) , Stéphane Plus (2) , Karen Baudelle (2) , Remy Bernard (2) , Bertrand Chazallon (2, 3) , Andy Cassez (2) , Hicham El Hamzaoui (2) , Olivier Vanvincq (2) , Johann Troles (4) , Laurent Bigot (2)

1 Prysmian Group
2 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523
3 PMI - Physique Moléculaire aux Interfaces
4 ISCR - Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes

Hybrid optical fibers, i.e. optical fibers that combine, in the same structure, glass with crystal, metal, polymer or a second type of glass, open access to a wide range of optical properties or optical functions not accessible to common single-glass-made optical fibers. Silicon-core fibers are one type of hybrid fibers that have been intensively studied since 2006 with the aim to take benefit of the mid-infrared transparency of silicon or to implement opto-electrical functions in the optical fiber itself. Some of the unique optical properties of these semiconductor-core fibers have been demonstrated but it is admitted that optical losses are still today a drag on the rise of performances and hence devote specific attention. Post-processing based on laser or thermal annealing can be applied on the as-drawn fibers to improve core crystallinity and then reduce optical losses. However, such processing techniques have been demonstrated on centimeter-long fibers only. In the present paper, we demonstrate as-drawn silicon-core fiber with loss level below 0.2 dB/cm on the 1250-1650nm wavelength range, this fiber being continuously manufactured over length exceeding one hundred of meters. Several fibers have been fabricated from a rod-in-stack approach and different core dimensions ranging from about 0.8 to 3.4 mu m have been successively realized and extensive characterizations (XRD, micro-Raman spectroscopy, TEM and ToF-SIMS analysis) have been conducted on the 3.4 mu m core fiber. The crystalline state of the core, the absence of oxygen contamination and the optical transmission from 1.1 to 4 mu m will be presented.

Mots clés: Hybrid optical fibers; Semiconductor optical fibers; Silicon-core optical fibers

Domaines: Chimie

Maryna Kudinova, Géraud Bouwmans, Rémi Habert, Stéphane Plus, Karen Baudelle, et al.. Hundreds of meter-long low-loss silicon-core optical fiber. Conference on Optical Components and Materials XVII, Feb 2020, San Francisco, United States. ⟨10.1117/12.2544173⟩. ⟨hal-02957806⟩