Glass-clad single-crystal germanium optical fiber

Long lengths (250 meters) of a flexible 150 microm diameter glass-clad optical fiber containing a 15 microm diameter crystalline and phase-pure germanium core was fabricated using conventional optical fiber draw techniques. X-ray diffraction and spontaneous Raman scattering measurements showed the core to be very highly crystalline germanium with no observed secondary phases. Elemental analysis confirmed a very well-defined core-clad interface with a step-profile in composition and nominally 4 weight-percent oxygen having diffused into the germanium core from the glass cladding. For this proof-of-concept fiber, polycrystalline n-type germanium of unknown dopant concentration was used. The measured infrared transparency of the starting material was poor and, as a likely outcome, the attenuation of the resultant fiber was too high to be measured. However, the larger Raman cross-section, infrared and terahertz transparency of germanium over silicon should make these fibers of significant value for fiber-based mid- to long-wave infrared and terahertz waveguides and Raman-shifted infrared light sources once high-purity, high-resistivity germanium is employed.