Single-crystal CsBr infrared fibers

Abstract

Using a modified pulling down technique originally developed for drawing single-crystal fibers, single-crystal CsBr fibers have been prepared with total losses of 2–5 dB/m at 10.6 μm. The major sources of these losses were absorption by molecular impurities and scattering from surface imperfections. From spectral loss measurements it was found that the impurity which absorbed most strongly at 10.6 μm was the SO = 4 ion contained in the raw materials. The result of tensile testing has shown that 〈001〉 oriented fibers are most excellent from the viewpoint of mechanical strength.