A multicore optical fiber comprising: a depressed index common-cladding region having a refractive index Δ.sub.cc; and a plurality of core portions disposed within the depressed index common-cladding region, wherein each core portion comprises: a central axis, a core region comprising a relative refractive index Δ.sub.1, an inner-cladding region encircling and directly contacting the core region comprising a relative refractive index Δ.sub.2, a trench region encircling and directly contacting the inner cladding region comprising a relative refractive index Δ.sub.3, and an outer-cladding region encircling and directly contacting the trench region comprising a relative refractive index Δ.sub.4, wherein the refractive index of the depressed index common-cladding region Δ.sub.cc is less than the refractive index of the outer-cladding region Δ.sub.4, and wherein a difference between the refractive index of the depressed index common-cladding region Δ.sub.cc and the refractive index of the first outer-cladding region Δ.sub.4 is greater than 0.05% Δ.

Small-radius coated optical fibers having large mode field diameter and low bending losses. The coated fiber may have an outer radius of 110 μm or less, while providing a mode field diameter of 9.0 μm or greater and a bending loss when wrapped about a 15 mm mandrel of 0.5 dB/km or less at wavelength of 1550 nm. The coated fiber may have a mode field diameter of 9.2 μm or greater and may have a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.25 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 20 mm mandrel or a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.02 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 30 mm mandrel.

An optical fiber with low attenuation and methods of making same are disclosed. The optical fiber has a core, an inner cladding surround the core, and an outer cladding surrounding the inner cladding. The outer cladding is chlorine-doped such that the relative refractive index varies as a function of radius. The radially varying relative refractive index profile of the outer cladding reduces excess stress in the core and inner cladding, which helps lower fiber attenuation while also reducing macrobend and microbend loss. A process of fabricating the optical fiber includes doping an overclad soot layer of a soot preform with chlorine and then removing a portion of the chlorine dopant from an outermost region of the overclad soot layer. The soot preform with the modified chlorine dopant profile is then sintered to form a glass preform, which can then be used for drawing the optical fiber.

Small-radius coated optical fibers having large mode field diameter and low bending losses. The coated fiber may have an outer radius of 110 μm or less, while providing a mode field diameter of 9.0 μm or greater and a bending loss when wrapped about a 15 mm mandrel of 0.5 dB/km or less at wavelength of 1550 nm. The coated fiber may have a mode field diameter of 9.2 μm or greater and may have a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.25 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 20 mm mandrel or a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.02 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 30 mm mandrel.

Small-radius coated optical fibers having large mode field diameter and low bending losses. The coated fiber may have an outer radius of 110 μm or less, while providing a mode field diameter of 9.0 μm or greater and a bending loss when wrapped about a 15 mm mandrel of 0.5 dB/km or less at wavelength of 1550 nm. The coated fiber may have a mode field diameter of 9.2 μm or greater and may have a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.25 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 20 mm mandrel or a bending loss at 1550 nm of 0.02 dB/km or less when wrapped about a 30 mm mandrel.

An optical fiber according to an embodiment includes a core and a cladding. The average value n1_ave of the refractive index of the core, the minimum value nc_min of the refractive index of the cladding, and the refractive index n0 of pure silica glass satisfy relationships of n1_ave>nc_min and nc_min<n0. The cladding contains fluorine. The fluorine concentration in the cladding is adjusted to be minimum in the outermost portion of the cladding including the outer peripheral surface of the cladding.

The present disclosure provides an optical fibre. The optical fibre includes a core extended from a central longitudinal axis to a first radius r1. Further, the optical fibre includes a first trench region extended from a second radius r2 to a third radius r3, a second trench region extended from the third radius r3 to a fourth radius r4 and a cladding region extended from the fourth radius r4 to a fifth radius r5.

An optical fiber is made of silica-based glass and includes a core, a first cladding that surrounds the core and that has a refractive index lower than a refractive index of the core; and a second cladding that surrounds the first cladding and that has a refractive index lower than the refractive index of the core and higher than the refractive index of the first cladding. At least a part of the first cladding contains a photosensitive material whose refractive index increases by irradiation with light having a specific wavelength. A difference n between a refractive index of a portion of the first cladding, the portion being nearest to the core, and the refractive index of the core is in a range of 0.25% to 0.30%. The radius ra of the core is larger than 4.3 m and smaller than or equal to 5.0 m.

An anti-cracking panda-type polarization-maintaining optical fiber includes a cladding layer, stress layers, and a fiber core. The fiber core is located in the center of the cladding layer. The stress layers are located symmetrically at two sides of the fiber core with a distance away from the fiber core and are located within the cladding layer. Each stress layer is enclosed at edges of their outer sides by a transition layer with a gradient refractive index. By providing the transition layer with the gradient refractive index at the edge of the outer side of the stress layer, the pressure stress at the edge of the stress layer is decomposed and released, so as to avoid cracks at the edge of the polished stress layer on the end of the optical fiber, and thus optimizes the performance of the polarization-maintaining optical fiber by decreasing the room temperature polishing cracking rate.

An object is to provide a beam propagating method capable of satisfying desired output power and a desired propagation distance and a required condition of beam quality and a method of designing an optical fiber designing the structure of an optical fiber. According to the present invention, an effective core cross-sectional area A.sub.eff is calculated based on desired specification values and, by appropriately adjusting the structure of an optical fiber satisfying the effective core cross-sectional area and the number of modes to be propagated, the structure of the optical fiber is determined. In this way, by controlling the excitation ratio of a high-order mode at the time of coupling laser light in the optical fiber designed as above, light of high-output laser can be propagated a long distance with the beam quality maintained.