Loose abrasive slurries for optical glass lapping

Loose abrasive lapping is widely used to prepare optical glass before its final polishing. We carried out a comparison of 20 different slurries from four different vendors. Slurry particle sizes and morphologies were measured. Fused silica samples were lapped with these different slurries on a single side polishing machine and characterized in terms of surface roughness and depth of subsurface damage (SSD). Effects of load, rotation speed, and slurry concentration during lapping on roughness, material removal rate, and SSD were investigated.     

Integrated optical components in glass for sensory microsystems

Integrated optical circuits in glass are developed, manufactured, and studied for the purpose of creating a base for the construction of different optical sensors. Thermal ion exchange and electro-stimulated migration of ions into the glass are used as the basic fabrication technologies.     

Hydroxyl groups in phosphosilicate glass for optical fibers

To gain insight into the local environment of impurity hydroxyl groups in phosphosilicate glass and determine its signatures in the vibration spectrum, the IR absorption spectra of phosphosilicate glasses containing up to 20 mol % P₂O₅ were analyzed. The interaction of hydroxyl groups with phosphorus-containing centers was studied with the use of a cluster model and the PM3 and MNDO quantum-chemical methods. The observed changes in the OH-stretching region of the absorption spectrum were interpreted using the modeling results.     

Bound-abrasive polishing of precision surfaces of nonmetallic materials

A mechanism of the microrelief generation on a surface being polished is described based on the cluster model and the physical-statistical model of the workpiece material debris formation. It is demonstrated that the removal rate in polishing nonmetallic materials decreases exponentially with increasing bond energy in these materials and the polished surface roughness depends on the ratio of natural frequencies of molecular fragments on the tool and workpiece surfaces.     

Fabrication of silicon based glass fibres for optical communication

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 temperature, 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 μm and 124.31 μm, 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 μm and 9.2 μm 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).     

A glass helium cryostat for optical and magneto-optical studies

A glass helium cryostat with copper shield for optical and magneto-optical studies is described. The shield-insert placed in the nitrogen dewar without hindering visual observation at the liquid helium level, prevents scattering of light by the bubbles of boiling nitrogen.     

Ag离子注入石英玻璃光学透射率研究

用Mevva离子源,将Ag离子注入到石英玻璃中形成纳米晶粒。离子注入的能量为90keV,剂量分别为5×1015、1×1016、3×1016、5×1016、1×1017ions/cm2。X光电子能谱(XPS)分析纳米Ag颗粒没有发生化学反应,说明Ag仍以金属态形式存在。光学透射率测试表明,吸收峰的位置在400nm,当剂量大于5×1016ions/cm2时,发现在440nm左右有一伴峰。分析表明400nm的峰来源于表面等离子体共振吸收,而440nm的伴峰是注入离子形成了少数非常大的纳米颗粒以及纳米颗粒之间相互作用引起的。样品退火后,表面等离子体共振吸收峰红移,而伴峰消失。随着退火的温度升高,峰位红移越大,说明纳米颗粒尺寸增大。     

Water jet: a promising method for cutting optical glass

We present an alternative method for cutting optical glass. It works with a high-pressure fluid, carring abrasive powder. This technique offers some advantages over conventional methods that use diamond abrasive covered wires or disks. We make a critical comparison between those two techniques, characterizing cuts with interferometric, polarimetric, and Ronchi testing. The main feature of the water-jet technique is that it allows surface of any shape, already polished, to be cut safely.     

Suspended core tellurite glass optical fibers for infrared supercontinuum generation

We report the fabrication and characterization of tellurite TeO₂-ZnO-Na₂O (TZN) microstructured suspended core optical fibers (MOFs). These fibers are designed for infrared supercontinuum generation with zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) at 1.45 μm. The measured losses at this wavelength are approximately 6 dB/m for a MOF with a 2.2 μm diameter core. The effective area of a particular fiber is 3.5 μm² and the nonlinear coefficient is calculated to be 437 W⁻¹km⁻¹. By pumping a 20 cm long fiber at 1.56 μm with a sub-nJ femtosecond laser source, we generate a supercontinuum (SC) spanning over 800 nm in the 1-2 μm wavelength range.     

Optically stimulated luminescent glass optical fibre dosemeter

An optical fibre radiation dosemeter has been developed that utilises optically stimulated luminescence and scintillation to provide independent, remote, real-time dose measurements. The radiation sensitive element consists of a 1 mm long, 0.4 mm diameter piece of copper-ion-doped fused quartz that is attached to a 1 m length of commercial optical fibre. The dosemeter probe is 0.6 mm in diameter and is flexible enough to be used in standard medical catheters for internal radiation dose measurements. A four-channel dosemeter system has been built and characterised under conditions typical of a radiotherapy environment. The device exhibits a linear response over the range of doses from 0.01 Gy to 10 Gy. The dosemeter responds identically to both electrons and photons in the range from 4 to 20 MV and the calibration was retained to within +/-2% over a period of 4 weeks. The fibre dosemeter has been used successfully to verity doses received by three patients receiving radiotherapy treatments.     

Analysis of fatigue failure of optical glass fibres

Journal of Materials Science Letters -     

DQE measurement in a scintillating glass optical fiber detector for X-ray imaging

An example of the measurement of detective quantum efficiency is illustrated for a scintillating glass optical fiber detector used in X-ray imaging. We have shown the necessity to filter the input Poisson noise of the incoming beam, by the MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) of the detector, in order to obtain the real DQE (Detective Quantum Efficiency).     

Definition of roughness structures for superhydrophobic and hydrophilic optical coatings on glass

With specific modeling, measurement, and analysis procedures, it is possible to predict, define, and control roughness structures for tailored wetting properties of optical coatings. Examples are given for superhydrophobic and hydrophilic sol-gel layers on glass substrate.     

Extrinsic fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometer sensor for refractive index measurement of optical glass

A simple fiber-optic sensor based on Fabry-Perot interference for refractive index measurement of optical glass is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. A broadband light source is coupled into an extrinsic fiber Fabry-Perot cavity formed by the surfaces of a sensing fiber end and the measured sample. The interference signals from the cavity are reflected back into the same fiber. The refractive index of the sample can be obtained by measuring the contrast of the interference fringes. The experimental data meet with the theoretical values very well. The proposed technique is a new method for glass refractive index measurement with a simple, solid, and compact structure.     

High-aperture optical waveguides based on fluorine-doped silica glass

The dependence of fluorine incorporation into silica glass on conditions of the optical waveguide blank manufacture using the method of modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) is studied. The degree of fluorine incorporation at constant consumption of a fluoridizer (SiF₄) is shown to increase with an increase in the volume of deposited material. Samples of multimode optical waveguides with a core from pure silica glass and a reflective coating made of fluorine-doped silica glass with a numerical aperture of ∼0.18 are obtained. Optical losses in such optical waveguides reach 0.5 dB/km in the long-wavelength region of the spectrum. Original Russian Text ? A.N. Guryanov, M.Yu. Salganskii, V.F. Khopin, A.F. Kosolapov, S.L. Semenov, 2009, published in Neorganicheskie Materialy, 2009, Vol. 45, No. 7, pp. 887–891.     

Evaluation of optical glass composition by optimization methods

Optical glass comprises SiO(2) and various other oxides that create the basic glass structure network. The Huggins-Sun-Davis (HSD) model, later modified by several authors, explains the influence of glass composition on glass properties, such as refractive index and density. A new technique for calculating the composition of a given glass whose Buchdahl or Schott dispersion coefficients and density are known is described. The well-known damped-least-squares method implementing Lagrange multipliers for boundary constraints on the composition parameters is used to provide a powerful iteration scheme with a high rate of convergence. The method based on the modified HSD model has been tested on several commercial glasses and is found to converge to very realistic composition values. The method can be easily programmed and provides a good tool in graded-index profile computations and in forming new optical glasses.