Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook

band-gap, which enables the guiding of light in the core. Fibers were successfully

fabricated with this technique, but with the limitations on the operational

wavelength imposed by the material absorption of silica (little transmission

above 2 mm). There have been efforts to manufacture similar structures using

glasses transparent to mid-IR wavelengths, but preserving the uniformity of the

structure during draw, which is necessary to keep losses low, is a challenge.

10.5 CONCLUSIONS

Hollow-core fibers offer a number of significant advantages over traditional

solid-core fibers. They greatly ease the constraints—absorption, nonlinearity,

material dispersion—associated with propagation through the core material and,

by proper choice of cladding materials ...