Investigation on germanium oxide-based glasses for infrared optical fibre development

We demonstrate the suitability of GeO2 for fibre engineering by compositional modifications of core and cladding glasses using the rod-in-tube technique, which have been matched for fibre drawing. The methods adopted for identifying the core–clad combination (56GeO2–31PbO–9Na2O–4Ga2O3 and 55GeO2–30PbO–11Na2O–4Ga2O3) are explained, based on the thermal, viscosity, and optical properties. We specially point out to the relatively high transformation temperature range (Tg > 380 °C) of the glass, which is suitable for chemical sensing and metrological applications in the 150–200 °C. The total intrinsic loss is compared with the measured loss in multi- and single-mode fibres from 0.532 to 2.02 μm, with loss less than 2.5 dB m−1 in the 1000–1600 nm range. The origin of larger loss outside this region is explained.