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Armadillo SIA, a leading global provider of specialized optical fibers, subassemblies, and hybrid photonic solutions and customized fibers, announced the Optran® Plus UV and Optran Plus WF (water-free), featuring the highest numerical aperture (NA) pure fused silica/silica core fibers currently available. The fibers are currently displayed at SPIE BiOS in booth #8353 and Photonics West in booth #3353, Moscone Center, San Francisco, Jan. 28 - Feb. 2, 2023.

Armadillo SIA’s innovative Optran Plus fibers are created using a proprietary preform production process that utilizes Plasma Outside Vapor Deposition (POVD) and Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition (PCVD) technology to produce material rods with a fused silica core and a fluorinated silica cladding. As a result of both deposition processes, thin, fluorine-doped quartz layers are deposited on the surface of the silica core, enabling preforms with lengths of 300 mm to 1100 mm. Using this unique dual fabrication process, it is possible to achieve highly challenging geometries such as square, rectangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, and even customized shapes.

The new fibers deliver exceptional spectral transmission from 190 nm to 2400 nm with lower optical losses and offer extremely high coupling efficiency. With numerical apertures of 0.10 to 0.30, respectively, and core diameters available from 50 to 2000 µm, the new pure fused silica/silica core fibers are ideal for a broad range of applications from spectroscopy to sensing.

According to Armadillo SIA’s business development manager, Mario Paredes, “We are one of very few facilities in the world that covers the entire manufacturing chain from the preform to the assembled fiber bundle and we are the only in-house facility that creates preforms using both POVD and manufacturer-specific PCVD processes. The preform establishes optical properties and the geometry of the fiber drawn from it. Our in-house production gives us full control over these parameters, giving us the unique capability to quickly adapt to our customers’ requirements.”

Click here to know more about Armadillo SIA’s Optran® UV and Optran® WF fiber.