Bull. Mater. Sci., Vol. 27, No. 1, February 2004, pp. 73–77. © Indian Academy of Sciences.

Fabrication of silicon based glass fibres for optical communication

VIVEK P KUDE† and R S KHAIRNAR*

School of Physical Sciences, SRTMU, Vishnupuri, Nanded 431 606, India
†
Department of Applied Physics, M.G.M. College of Engineering, Nanded 431 606, India

MS received 15 September 2003; revised 5 December 2003

Abstract. Silicon based glass fibres are fabricated by conventional fibre drawing process. First, preform
fabrication is carried out by means of conventional MCVD technique by using various dopants such as SiCl4,
GeCl4, POCl3, and FeCl3. The chemicals are used in such a way that step index single mode fibre can be
drawn. The fibre drawing process consists of various steps such as heating the preform at elevated tempera-
ture, diameter monitor, primary and secondary coating, and ultra violet radiation curing. The fibres are then
characterized for their geometrical and optical properties. The drawn fibre has diameter of core and cladding
to be 8⋅⋅3 µ m and 124⋅⋅31 µ m, respectively whereas non-circularity is found to be 4⋅⋅17% for core and 0⋅⋅26% for
cladding as seen from phase plot. Mode field diameter is found to be 8⋅⋅9 µ m and 9⋅⋅2 µ m using Peterman II
and Gaussian method, respectively. The fabricated fibres showed the signal attenuation of 0⋅⋅35 dB/km and
0⋅⋅20 dB/km for 1310 nm and 1550 nm, respectively as measured by the optical time domain reflectometer
(OTDR).

Keywords. Optical fibre; preform fabrication; fibre drawing; mode field diameter; OTDR measurements.

1. Introduction temperature distribution (Papamichael and Miaoulis 1990).

The most fundamental physical parameter for optical fibre
Numerous techniques (Beals et al 1979; Izawa et al 1979; is geometry, since the dimension of the fibre determines
MacChesney 1980) are developed for fabrication of glass its ability to splice and to be terminated. Therefore, when
fibres so as to get better optical properties suitable for the fibre is fabricated, it is important to study the above-
optical communication, and also to combat with ever in- mentioned parameters, which are useful in assessing the
creasing demand of fibre in diverse application areas. communication performance of the fibre. In the present
Various processes are being modified such as preform paper, we report the fabrication of single mode step index
making, melting process, melting environment, homoge- silica glass fibre and its geometrical characterization. For
nization/fining, and reactive atmosphere processing this, fabrication of preform is initially carried out. Later on,
(France Paul et al 1990). Hermetic carbon coating has preform is mounted on the fibre-drawing machine (Nex-
been shown to be effective barrier for water and hydrogen trom make). The drawn fibres are then characterized for
(Lamair et al 1988; Huff et al 1989; Lu et al 1989). their geometrical shapes by means of geometrical ana-
Polymers such as ultra violet radiation curable acrylate lyser instrument from GN Nettest (model 2400 unit),
and Teflon-FEP are used as coating for fluoride glass opti- USA. The mode field diameter (MFD) is measured with
cal fibres (Ihishi et al 1990). However, these materials the wide angle variable aperture unit (WAVAU, Model
have high permeability of water and hence are not adequate 2200) of GN Nettest, USA. Finally the signal attenuation
for fabrication of high strength optical fibres. Oxide glass is measured by back scattering technique using OTDR
has low permeability of water than fluoride/polymer fibres setup. All the experimental work is carried out at Sterlite
and hence has high durability as compared to fluoride Optical Technology Ltd., Aurangabad.
glass. Efforts are also made to fabricate plastic optical fibres
as a compliment for glass fibres in short distance com-
2. Experimental
munication links (Izawa et al 1977). The fabrication and
characterization of side hole single mode optical fibres
2.1 Preform fabrication
have been studied (Izawa and Sudo 1987). The thermal
modeling is reported for optical fibres drawing process to
The preform is fabricated by means of modified chemical
see the effects of fibre diameter and drawing speed on
vapour deposition (MCVD) process. Initially the substrate
tube is cleaned by hydrofluoric acid and fire-polished to
*Author for correspondence remove stresses in the glass and later on etched with

73
74 Vivek P Kude and R S Khairnar

freon to remove surface impurities. The reactants (SiCl4 + 2.2 Fibre drawing
O2) are introduced at one end of the rotating tube while
an exhaust is located at the other end. Cladding layer is The performance of optical fibres, specifically the trans-
made by deposition of materials such as SiCl4, GeCl4 and mission losses, bandwidth and strength, is strongly influ-
POCl3 in different environments such as oxygen, helium enced by the fibre drawing and coating process. This
and freon. During clad process, freon reduces the refractive process must be treated as an integrated operation desig-
index of clad and reaction converts halides into oxides. ned to impart desired properties to the resulting fibre.
Approximately, 25–30 layers of cladding are deposited The essential components of whole process are shown in
on the inside of the substrate tube. A core layer is deposited the form of flow chart in figure 2, which consists of feed
by means of compounds like SiCl4, GeCl4 in gaseous en- glass, heat source, fibre diameter monitor, cooling system,
vironment of oxygen, helium and freon. GeCl4 converts to coating applicator, curing apparatus, and fibre puller/wind-
GeO2, which serves as a dopant to increase the refractive ing mechanism. The components are arranged in vertical
index of the core layer, whereas helium lowers the depo- position to take advantage of gravitational forces. The feed
sition temperature (Fleming 1978). The flow of reactants glass preform is fed at speed of 0⋅02–0⋅03 cm/s depending
and the speed of traversing oxyhydrogen burner are closely on the heat source, preform diameter and draw speed.
monitored using a video camera. When the desired thick- Continuous lengths of more than 40 km have been drawn
ness is achieved, valve is closed to stop the flow of the from such a preform in one drawing. Fibre drawing pro-
reactants. After deposition of core layers on the inner side ceeds by heating the tip of the preform to a molten state
of tube, this composite tube is heated to high temperature and allowing it to extend under the force of gravity
from outside so that it collapses to form a solid rod. The downward into a fine-diameter filament without the use
freon gas is passed while collapsing so that the core has
higher refractive index than the clad as well as the solid
glass rod becomes free of air bubbles. The chlorine gas is
also used in combination with freon so as to remove OH
from SiO2. This preform is subjected to fibre drawing
process.
The reactions that take place during preform fabrication
are as follows.

SiCl4 + SO2 → SiO2 + 2Cl2: Conversion to quartz

GeCl4 + O2 → GeO2 + 2Cl2: Alteration of refraction
4POCl4 + 3O2 → 2P2O5 + 6Cl2: Alteration of
refractive index

Freon (CCl4F2) on heating forms the compound, SiF4, in-

stead of SiO2, which lowers the deposition rate of SiO2.
Figure 1 shows the fabricated preform. The preform has
diameter typically in the range of 25–60 mm and 600–
800 mm in length, respectively.

Figure 1. The photograph of preform. Figure 2. Flow chart of fibre drawing and coating process.
 Fabrication of silicon based glass fibres for optical communication 75

of any die mechanism whereas pulling and winding diameters and noncircularity for core and cladding. It is
mechanism sustains a drawing force. The fibre diameter seen that clad ovality is maintained constant within 1%
is monitored continuously as the fibre passes through the and core ovality within 6%.
furnace. Any variation of the fibre diameter is detected
by a control device that automatically readjusts the tem-
3.2 Mode field diameter
perature and the speed of pulling mechanism to compensate
for initial change. Since this bare fibre consists of core
The mode field diameter is a measure of distribution
and clad, the fibre diameter is an important parameter,
width of electric field intensity. Small value of mode
which influences wave propagation phenomenon used in
field diameter for a fibre denotes less bending losses for
optical fibre. When the fibre comes out of the furnace, it
optical signal. A variable wavelength light source is scanned
is cooled in the presence of helium gas without altering
through its spectral range and enters the fibre input end
its physical dimension. Then it enters the coating applica-
face through a lens and a mode stripper. The near-field
tor immediately. A clean environment is maintained at
this junction to reduce the risk of contaminating the fibre
surface. Polymer coating is applied concentrically in suf-
ficient thickness and solidified using ultra-violet curing
technique very rapidly. Later on, it is scanned for the de-
tection of defects such as voids, lumps and uncoated sec-
tion.

3. Characterization

3.1 Fibre core and clad measurement

Core clad diameter is measured by means of geometry

analyser wide angle variable aperture unit (WAVAU) from
GN Nettest (Model 2400), USA. Light is launched from
one end of fibre having 1310 nm wavelength by means of
core illuminator. The light comes out at other end of the Figure 3. The phase plots for cladding of the fabricated fibre.
fibre which is also illuminated to see core cladding edges
distinctly. This core cladding picture is transferred on com-
puter for digitizing. Least square technique is used for elli-
pse fitting to this digitized image.
The data is given as (Xi, Yi) and the modeled ellipses
centre as (Xo, Yo) with polar angle, θ, and major and minor
axial radii, A and B, respectively. The calculations of the
best fit ellipse finds the minimum error (Se) using follow-
ing formula

Se2 = ∑{[(Xicosθ + Yisinθ – Xo)2/A2] +

[(Yicosθ – Xisinθ – Yo)2/B2]}2.

The measured result of diameter can be obtained from the

geometric mean of major and minor axial radii

Diameter = 2√[(A2 + B2)/2].

Figure 4. The phase plots for core of the fabricated fibre.
The non-circularity measured in terms of percentage is
given by

Non-circularity = {[(A – B)/diameter]200}%. Table 1. Glass fibre geometry measurements.

Layer Diameter (µm) Non-circularity (%)
Typical phase plots in figures 3 and 4 show the modeled
data (line) and actual measured data (dots) as a function Core 8⋅30 4⋅17
Clad 124⋅3 0⋅26
of θ for cladding and core of the fibre. Table 1 lists the
76 Vivek P Kude and R S Khairnar

light pattern is observed at the output end of fibre. As OTDR measurements are carried out by means of back
wavelength increases from below the cut-off, the diameter scattering technique by using GN Nettest model CMA
of the LPo1 mode and the LP11 mode increases at first. The 4000 instrument. A silica fibre of more than a kilometer
mode field diameters are computed by two methods, viz. in length, having core diameter of 8⋅3 µm, is ground pol-
Gaussian and Peterman II techniques, separately (Ghatak ished and connected to the fibre stage of OTDR setup. A
and Thyagarajan 1999). The formula given below is used
to compute the mode field diameter (2Wo) by Gaussian
method

E2 = ∑{Pi – Po[1 – exp(–mtan2θi)]}, (1)

2Wo = (λ/π)√(2m), (2)

where Pi is the measured power through aperture i and θi

the half angle of the cone subtended by aperture i, and λ
is wavelength. Equation (1) minimizes the square, E2, by
adjusting the parameter, Po and m.
The mode field diameter (2Wo) according to Peterman
II is computed as follows

−1 / 2
π / 2 
∫
2Wo = [( 2 )(λ / π )] a (θ ) sin 2θ dθ 
 0 
, (3)
 

where a(θ) = 1 – [P(θ)/Pmax] and Pmax the peak-measured

power.
Figure 5 shows typical graph of power vs angle θ. The
mode field diameter is found to be 8⋅9 µm and 9⋅2 µm us-
ing Gaussian and Peterman II technique, respectively.

3.3 Loss measurement using OTDR

Optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) is a primary

tool to measure insertion loss as well as manufacturing
faults like breaks and bends in the fibre.

Figure 6. OTDR signal trace of a synthesized optical fibre.

The slope of a trace indicated gradual attenuation over a length
of a fibre. The spike at ‘A’ shows the power loss of a signal at
Figure 5. The graph shows variation of power as a function the connector while the spike at ‘B’ marks the end of the fibre.
of θ of the fabricated fibre for computation of mode field dia- (a) OTDR trace taken at 1310 nm and (b) OTDR trace taken at
meter at 1310 nm. 1550 nm.
 Fabrication of silicon based glass fibres for optical communication 77

square pulse signal of 275 ns is injected onto the optical wavelength, respectively. These results indicate that the
fibre. A small amount of the pulse is continuously reflec- drawn fibres can be useful for optical signal communi-
ted back in the opposite direction by irregularities in the cation.
optical fibre structure. By measuring the amount of back-
scatter signal vs time, the loss vs distance of the optical
fibre is measured. Figures 6(a) and (b) display the OTDR Acknowledgements
trace for 1310 nm wavelength and for 1550 nm wave-
length signal, respectively. The vertical scale is the reflected The authors are thankful to Prof. (Dr) S A Suryawanshi,
signal level on a logarithmic scale in dB. The horizontal SRTM University, Nanded, for constant encouragement.
axis corresponds to the distance between the instrument One of the authors (VPK) gratefully acknowledges Sterlite
and a location in the fibre under test. Typically, the positive Optical Technology Ltd., Aurangabad, for providing ex-
spike near point ‘A’ is due to the reflection at the front perimental facilities.
connector whereas the one beyond point ‘B’ is due to fibre
end. Both the traces show gradual decrease in the signal References
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