Air-structured optical fibre drawn from a 3D-printed preform

Kevin Cook; Sergio Leon-Saval; John Canning; Zane Reid; Md. Arafat Hossain; Gang-Ding Peng

doi:10.1117/12.2195466

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28 September 2015 Air-structured optical fibre drawn from a 3D-printed preform

Kevin Cook, Sergio Leon-Saval, John Canning, Zane Reid, Md. Arafat Hossain, Gang-Ding Peng

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Proceedings Volume 9634, 24th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors; 96343E (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2195466
Event: International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors (OFS24), 2015, Curitiba, Brazil

Abstract

We report the first optical fibre drawn from a 3D-printed preform. An air-structured polymer preform is printed using a modified butadiene plastic called Bendlay as opposed to the more-common Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). The preform is subsequently drawn to fibre form at a relatively low temperature of 160 ⁰C and maintains its air-structured cladding holes. Such ability to freely-design and 3D-print complex preform structures, such as photonic bandgap and photonic crystal structures, opens up an exciting new front in optical fibre fabrication.

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Kevin Cook, Sergio Leon-Saval, John Canning, Zane Reid, Md. Arafat Hossain, and Gang-Ding Peng "Air-structured optical fibre drawn from a 3D-printed preform", Proc. SPIE 9634, 24th International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors, 96343E (28 September 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2195466

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