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AssigneeBell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated
InventorsCharles Andrew Burrus, Jr., Julian Stone
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There is disclosed a technique for growing, from a melt, doped single-crystal fibers for use as lasers or other active or passive optical devices of a size that is compatible with proposed optical fiber communications systems. A rod of undoped material has deposited thereon, by mechanical means, a powder or a slurry of a compound of the active ion or other dopant. A melt is formed at the end of the rod with a laser beam and a reduced diameter doped single-crystal fiber is grown or drawn from the melt by pulling with a wire or, when desired crystalline orientation is needed, by pulling with a pointed and oriented seed crystal. The pulling step, at least in the specific case of a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) fiber, is repeated a plurality of times with approximately a 3:1 diameter reduction each time in order to obtain the desired fiber size; but only one deposition of the dopant compound is needed.
A method for drawing a craze-free single-crystal fiber of YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) of diameter less than about 200 micrometers, doped with neodymium to a uniform concentration of about 1 percent by weight comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.