Low loss Ge-As-Se chalcogenide glass fiber, fabricated using extruded preform, for mid-infrared photonics

Chalcogenide glass fibers have attractive properties (e.g. wide transparent window, high optical non-linearity) and numerous potential applications in the mid-infrared (MIR) region. Low optical loss is desired and important in the development of these fibers. Ge-As-Se glass has a large glass-forming range to provide versatility of choice from continuously varying physical properties. Recently, broadband MIR supercontinuum generation has been achieved in chalcogenide fibers by using Ge-As-Se glass in the core/clad. structure. In the shaping of chalcogenide glass optical fiber preforms, extrusion is a useful technique. This work reports glass properties (viscosity-temperature curve and glass transition) and optical losses of Ge-As-Se fiber fabricated from an extruded preform. A robust cut-back method of fiber loss measurement is developed and the corresponding error calculation discussed. MIR light is propagated through 52 meters of a fiber, which has the lowest loss yet reported for Ge-As-Se fiber of 83 + or - 2 dB/km at 5.50 mu m wavelength. The fiber baseline loss is 83-90 dB/km across 5.6-5.8 mu m, a Se-H impurity absorption band of 1.4 dB/m at 4.5 mu m wavelength is superposed and other impurity bands (e.g. O-H, As-O, Ge-O) are [< or =] 20 dB/km. Optical losses of fiber fabricated from different positions of the extruded preform are investigated.