The article below featured in the Laser Focus World issue of May 2008 describes the exciting applications enabled by IRphotonics unique technology. A must read!

Fluoride fibers (both multimode and singlemode ) have losses of at least one order of magnitude less than competing technologies for the Mid Infrared window. All glass fibers contain varying quantities of water (OH impurities). These impurities absorb energy thereby creating additional attenuation at 2,94 µm (Er:YAG). IRphotonics has developed a new glass synthesis process that allows the manufacturing of fluoride glass and fluoride fibers with a minimal amount of impurities and a very low OH content.

As fiber optics manufacturer, we understand first hand that in a sensor application for example , lower attenuation in optical glasses and optical fibers will allow the overall system to be more sensitive. In medical energy delivery applications, the overall system will have less heat dissipation problems, will require smaller foot prints and have an extended life because the laser will be driven at a lower power level to achieve a required power output.

As manufacturer of fluoride fiber optics we have developed infrared ZBLAN fluoride fibers that have virtually no loss associated with the bend radius of the optical fiber. This is extremely important in medical systems, since a constant output power must be guaranteed independent of the position of the multimode or singlemode fiber. IRphotonics optical fibers do not see any variation in ouptut power under smaller and smaller bend radius conditions, which makes them ideal for medical applications.

Fluoride fibers have been tested under high power regimes and have been able to handle powers of up to 915 J/cm2.

A number of companies and research centers have tried for years to obtain Mid-Infrared optical fibers with good mechanical properties and failed. This is largely due to the complex and sensitive nature of the materials involved in the preparation process. As a manufacturer of fiber optics, IRphotonics has overcome this problem by the development of a new multimode and singlemode fiber manufacturing process. With our patent pending process, IRphotonics can offer single mode and multi mode optical fibers with similar mechanical properties to those of specialty silica fibers as can be seen in the available Weibull Plot. The data demonstrates that IRphotonics Mid-IR fibers have a proof strenght of greater than 100 Kpsi for 99% of sample measured. The fiber also offer an exceptionnaly small breaking bend radius of less than 4 mm for a 125 um fiber.

Lifetime of fluoride fibers has been determined to be 25 years with an initial fiber strength of 500 MPa at 80OC, 80% RH. The lifetime was estimated using zero-stress aging and dynamic and static fatigue tests. The lifetime estimation demonstrates clearly that the long term reliability of fluoride fibers can be guaranteed for telecommunication applications which are some of the most demanding.