Multicomponent glass optical fibres with a lowered water content and reduced loss

A technique has been developed to reduce the −OH content of multicomponent glasses. The glasses were treated with perfluoropropane and the linear absorption coefficient of −OH reduced from typically 0.08 to as low as 0.01 cm −1, which corresponds to a reduction of −OH content to approximately 2 ppm. A fibre pulled from treated glasses had a reduced loss at 1.3 μm, and a loss of 2.9 dB km −1 at 1.12 μm which is the lowest reported loss for a fibre prepared by a double crucible technique.