Six-Core GeO2-Doped Silica Microstructured Optical Fiber with Induced Chirality

This work presents a fabricated silica few-mode microstructured optical fiber (MOF) with a special six GeO2-doped core geometry, an outer diameter of 125 µm (that corresponds to conventional commercially available telecommunication optical fibers), and improved induced twisting up to 500 revolutions per 1 m (under a rotation speed of 1000 revolutions per meter with a drawing speed of ~2 m per minute). The article discusses some technological aspects and issues of manufacturing the above-described twisted MOFs with complicated structures and geometry as GeO2-doped silica supporting elements for them. We present results of some measurements performed for fabricated samples of chiral silica six-GeO2-doped-core few-mode MOFs with various orders of twisting and both step and graded refractive indexes of “cores”. These tests contain research on MOF geometrical parameters, attenuation, and measurements of the far-field laser beam profile.