Abstract

Hollow optical fibres offer a unique photonic platform by confining light in a void which may be filled with a vacuum or a gas at low or high pressure. The lack of substantial overlap of the light with the solid parts of the fibre surrounding the hollow core also increases the fibre damage threshold and reduces the attenuation in regions where the glass is absorbing strongly. For the current generation of large core hollow silica optical fibres, using antiresonant reflection to confine light[1,2], there is a particular opportunity to exploit the low optical attenuation in the mid-infrared together with the ability to fill the fibres with laser-active gases[3,4,5].

© 2017 IEEE