Continuous production of light-conducting glass fibers with ion diffusion

Abstract

Abstract In a process for continuously producing a light conducting glass fiber wherein the refractive index in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the glass fiber is so distributed that it continuously decreases outward from a certain value at the center toward the peripheral portion, a first kind of glass containing ions having a greater degree of contribution to the refractive index is drawn, in molten state from a central orifice to form the core portion of the glass fiber, and another kind of melted glass containing ions having less contribution to the refractive index is drawn from a second orifice to form an outer coating layer of the glass fiber, the tip of the first central orifice being located at a retracted position compared to that of the second orifice with respect to the drawn direction of the melted glasses, whereby thermal mutual diffusion of these ions is caused to occur through a boundary surface between two kinds of glasses located mainly in the distance portion between the tips.

Inventors

• 👤 K Koizumi
• 👤 Y Ikeda
• 👤 M Yoshiyagawa

Bibliographic Details