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Title: Single Mode Air-Clad Single Crystal Sapphire Optical Fiber

Journal Article · · Applied Sciences
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/app7050473· OSTI ID:1427979
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [1]
  1. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  2. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States). Center for Photonics Technology. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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The observation of single mode propagation in an air-clad single crystal sapphire optical fiber at wavelengths at and above 783 nm is presented for the first time. A high-temperature wet acid etching method was used to reduce the diameter of a 10 cm length of commercially-sourced sapphire fiber from 125 micrometers to 6.5 micrometers, and far-field imaging provided modal information at intervals as the fiber diameter decreased. Modal volume was shown to decrease with decreasing diameter, and single mode behavior was observed at the minimum diameter achieved. While weakly-guiding approximations are generally inaccurate for low modal volume optical fiber with high core-cladding refractive index disparity, consistency between these approximations and experimental results was observed when the effective numerical aperture was measured and substituted for the theoretical numerical aperture in weakly-guiding approximation calculations. With the demonstration of very low modal volume in sapphire at fiber diameters much larger than anticipated by legacy calculations, the resolution of sapphire fiber distributed sensors may be increased and other sensing schemes requiring very low modal volume, such as fiber Bragg gratings, may be realized in extreme environment applications.

Research Organization:
Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
Grant/Contract Number:
FE0012274
OSTI ID:
1427979
Journal Information:
Applied Sciences, Vol. 7, Issue 5; ISSN 2076-3417
Publisher:
MDPICopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 18 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (13)

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High‐temperature optical fiber thermometer journal March 1983
Modal reduction in 6-rod bundled single-crystal sapphire photonic crystal fibers conference May 2012
Optical and mechanical properties of single-crystal sapphire optical fibers journal January 1993
Submicron diameter single crystal sapphire optical fiber journal January 2015
Chemical Polishing and Etching Techniques for Al2O3 Single Crystals journal April 1963
Modal reduction in single crystal sapphire optical fiber journal October 2015
Study of GaN-Based Light-Emitting Diodes Grown on Chemical Wet-Etching-Patterned Sapphire Substrate With V-Shaped Pits Roughening Surfaces journal June 2008
Single and low order mode interrogation of a multimode sapphire fibre Bragg grating sensor with tapered fibres journal April 2006
Fabrication of Patterned Sapphire Substrate by Wet Chemical Etching for Maskless Lateral Overgrowth of GaN journal January 2006
Optical properties of single-crystal sapphire fibers journal January 1997

Cited By (3)

Single Crystal Fibers: Diversified Functional Crystal Material journal December 2019
In-fiber integrated quasi-distributed high temperature sensor array journal January 2018
Time resolved Brillouin fiber-spectrometer journal January 2019

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
sapphire optical fiber
single mode optical fiber
distributed sensing