OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE DRAWING DEVICE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a novel drawing device for an optical fiber and a method therefor. SOLUTION: The drawing device has a heating furnace 22 which heats the optical fiber and a cooling chamber 24 which is coupled to the heating furnace and cools the optical fiber drawn from a preform after passing the heating furnace. This cooling chamber 24, unlike the conventional cooling chamber, is constituted to such a shape which allows the passage of the small drops of molten glass formed by the melting end of a heated preform before the formation of the optical fiber and has a diameter considerably greater than the diameter of the optical fiber. The device has also an intermediate cooling pipe 28 of such a shape which allows the passage of the small drops of the molten glass for the purpose of further cooling the drawn optical waveguide fiber and for coupling an annealer 26 to the cooling chamber 24. The method for drawing the optical waveguide fiber consists in supplying the optical fiber preform, heating the preform in the heating furnace as the preform passes the inside of the heating furnace 22 and drawing the optical fiber from the heated preform.