One of the convieniences of HGWs is that since the core is air, no end polishing is required. To cut a piece of HGW, simply scratch the glass substrate with a SiC or Diamond scribe, and pull. Try not to bend or twist the HGW much while cleaving as this may prevent a clean fracture. A twisting moment could cause a spiral fracture to propagate along the length of the waveguide.

To attain minimum loss it is required that the focused spot size be ~67% of the HGW bore diameter. This ensures proper filling of the air core and minimum attenuation. Since minimum attenuation occurs for the lowest order (TEM₀₀) mode, the performance of the HGW depends strongly on the modal properties of your source. The best results are therefore attained with a high quality laser.

Please be careful when bending the HGWs! While the smaller bore waveguide will bend to quite a tight radius, the larger guides can be quite brittle. The tighter the bend, the greater the strain. Glass is brittle and a great deal of energy is released should the HGW fail under a tight bend. It is strongly recomended you wear eye protection to prevent flying shards of glass from entering your eyes.

This section is under construction so more will come.

HGW | Background | Properties | Power Delivery | Applications | Practical Aspects | Procuring HGWs
 

Return to the Specialty Fiber homepage

Please report broken links on this page to the
Specialty Fiber Webmaster