We investigate the digital glass forming process for depositing commercial SMF-28 single-mode optical fiber for photonic purposes. The process utilizes a CO2 laser to locally heat the feedstock to fuse it onto a fused quartz substrate. We focus on how altering the deposition parameters, including the laser power, feed rate, and path plan, affects the deposited fiber morphology and how this affects the optical transmission. At high powers, the fiber bonds strongly to the substrate, resulting in significant changes in fiber morphology and core shape. With a gradient transition between the feedstock geometry and the deposition geometry, high optical transmission for straight line depositions can be achieved. Additional work was performed examining the optical losses when the fiber is deposited around a constant radius curve for different fiber morphologies, with higher losses recorded for higher power samples. Comparing the doping profile of these samples indicates that the gradient of Ge decreases at higher laser power, suggesting the losses are caused by diffusion of the fiber core. This work shows that for high input powers, the optical losses around curves are increased, leading to a tradeoff between the bonding strength and optical transmission for these geometries.
This paper investigates the Digital Glass Forming process for depositing single-mode optical fiber for waveguiding. The process utilizes a CO2 laser to heat the fiber to deposit onto a quartz substrate. This paper studies the effects of the feed rate and substrate scan speed on the fiber morphology. The relationship between the process parameters on the optical transmission through the fiber. The results show that as the fiber deforms to create a good contact with the substrate, the fiber core becomes elliptical. This reduces the overall transmission through the fiber. The dependence of the transmission on the radius of curvature of the printed track is also measured along with a preliminary demonstration of coupling between adjacent fibers.
There are several techniques for 3D printing glass by sequentially fusing molten tracks. We investigate a process feeding cool glass filament into a CO2 laser to provide local heating. Unlike most crystalline materials, glasses retain significant viscosity when molten. In filament-fed laser heated processing the feed exerts a significant stress on the laser heated region which strongly influences on final track geometry. This introduces challenges but also allows the creation of fully dense glass volumes and free-standing structures. The stress field on the molten region is controlled by using pneumatics and orienting the feed in the moving deposition coordinate system.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) of low-profile 2.5D glass structures is demonstrated using a fiber-fed laser-heated process. In this process, glass single mode optical fibers with diameters 90-125 μm are fed into the intersection of a workpiece and CO2 laser beam. The workpiece is positioned by a four-axis CNC stage. Issues unique to the process are discussed, including the thermal breakdown of the glass and index inhomogeneity. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that the core/cladding structure of the fiber remains intact during printing and can be used to guide light for photonic applications.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.