Technical and economic aspects of the different fibre fabrication processes

The processes for making preforms for hard glass fibres are the Vad process, the Ovd process, the Mcvd (Pmcvd) process and the Pcvd process. This paper discusses the processes themselves, the optical properties of multimode, single-mode and high Na fibres made with these processes and the potentials of the different processes. For really large scale applications it will be necessary to reduce the costs of manufacturing these fibres. The factors that determine these costs are discussed and ways in which they can be reduced are indicated.