Patent · US Expired

Rare earth element-doped multiple-core optical fiber and method for fabricating the same

US5712941A · kind A · utility

22Cited by
1References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignees

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 4, 1996
Grant dateJan 27, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 4, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH01S3/06729
  • WIPO fieldOptics
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A rare earth element-doped multiple-core optical fiber has an outer cladding layer and a plurality of cores each covered with a primary cladding layer. The cores are positioned substantially on a central axis of the outer cladding layer and separated with a predetermined spacing S from each other by the primary cladding layer. The outer cladding layers are made of SiO.sub.2, or SiO.sub.2 added with a dopant like F, Ge, etc. The primary cladding layer is made of SiO.sub.2 doped with Er, or SiO.sub.2 doped with Er and F together and formed to have a predetermined thickness of 1.0 .mu.m.about.1.5 .mu.m to form the predetermined spacing S. The Soot glass rods for cores and primary cladding layers are immersed in an Er-compound solution, then picked up, dried and consolidated to form Er--Al co-doped SiO.sub.2 --GeO.sub.2 transparent glass rods. The glass rods are inserted into a quartz tube and collapsed by heat to fabricate an optical fiber preform rod, then heated to be drawn to provide an Er-doped multiple-core optical fiber.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.