Method for producing glass preform for optical fiber
AssigneeSumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.
InventorsFutoshi Mizutani, Gotaro Tanaka
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Abstract
A glass preform for an optical fiber having homogeneous distribution of bulk density in its radial direction is produced by a method comprising forming fine glass particles by jetting a gaseous glass material and a fuel gas from a burner, depositing the fine glass particles on a seed rod to form a soot rod with measuring a temperature of a part of the soot rod on which the glass particles are being deposited so as to control said temperature, and then sintering the soot rod to obtain a transparent glass preform.
Claims4
An outside vapor-phase deposition (OVD) method for producing an optical fiber glass preform with a desired bulk density distribution in the radial direction of said preform, comprising the steps of:
- forming glass soot particles by jetting and combusting a gaseous glass-forming material and a fuel gas from a burner in the presence of oxygen,
- depositing the glass soot particles along the length of a glass rod to form a soot-coated rod preform while simultaneously measuring the temperature of a part of the preform on which the glass soot particles are being deposited, the temperature which is measured being that of the deposited soot particles immediately after their deposit, and generating a first feedback signal indicative of the temperature, and then,
- controlling said temperature by adjusting the fuel gas jetting rate in response to said first feedback signal, wherein direct response and control is made with sufficient speed throughout the rod formation to correct deviations and to form a uniform product having a bulk density gradient in the radial direction, and then
- sintering the rod preform to obtain a transparent glass preform.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.