Abstract
The MCVD process1 is now in large scale manufacture by Western Electric and used by many companies throughout the world to make economical high-quality communications grade lightguides. The simplicity, flexibility, and versatility of the technique coupled with considerable process understanding, automation, and control result not only in a high-quality product but allow production to adapt easily to manufacture of single-mode or multimode lightguides, as demand dictates. Moreover, the process versatility allows a wide variety of complex designs, including optimized depressed cladding single-mode structures, to be readily fabricated using fluorine doping. The rf plasma variation on MCVD2 has extended the attainable deposition rate and incorporation efficiency and shows great promise as a fabrication technique. High-strength lightguides are important, especially for underseas applications, and the MCVD process parameters to attain high strength are well understood, resulting in excellent long-length high strength3 as well as high-strength fusion splicing techniques.4
© 1984 Optical Society of America
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