On reasons for strong absorption of light in an optical fibre at high temperature

A hypothesis is proposed that explains qualitatively a strong absorption of light in quartz. The hypothesis is based on an analogy with the so-called chemical radiative collisions (RC reactions), which were extensively studied in the 1970-1980s. In these reactions, individual chemical bonds dissociate and new bonds are formed. An estimate is made for a reaction in which a free (non-bridge) oxygen atom bounds with a bridge atom, while another oxygen atom undergoes a reverse transition. The estimates show that the limiting absorption coefficient can achieve ten hundreds inverse centimetres. (letters)