A supercontinuum radiation source including a modulator being operable to modulate pump laser radiation including a train of radiation pulses to provide modulated pump laser radiation, the modulation being such to selectively provide a burst of the pulses; and a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber being operable to receive the modulated pump laser radiation and excite a working medium contained within the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber so as to generate supercontinuum radiation.

Optical components and methods of manufacture thereof. A first optical component has a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber includes internal capillaries for guiding radiation and an outer capillary sheathing the internal capillaries; and at least an output end section having a larger inner cross-sectional dimension over at least a portion of the output end section than an inner cross-sectional dimension of the outer capillary along a central portion of the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber prior to the output end section. A second optical component includes a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber and a sleeve arrangement.

The invention generally relates to optical fibers, and, more particularly, to hollow-core optical fibers and cables for use in high-speed data transmission, including transmission of telecommunications data, and methods of manufacturing such hollow-core optical fibers and cables.

A cylindrical electrode module of a fiber optic laser system includes an inner cylinder having an inner repeating pattern of longitudinally-aligned positive and negative electrodes on an outer surface of the inner cylinder. The cylindrical electrode mode includes an outer cylinder that encloses the inner cylinder. The outer cylinder that has an outer repeating pattern of longitudinally-aligned negative and positive electrodes on an inner surface of the inner cylinder that are in corresponding and complementary, parallel alignment with the positive and negative electrodes of the inner repeating pattern on the outer surface of the inner cylinder. The cylindrical electrode module includes an optical fiber having an input end configured to align with and be optically coupled to a pump laser. The optical fiber is wrapped around the inner cylinder within the outer cylinder to form a cylindrical fiber assembly. The electrodes are activated to achieve quasi-phase matching.

An interferometric optical fibre sensor comprises optical fibre defining an optical circuit configured to propagate a first optical wave via an environment in which the optical fibre can be exposed to a stimulus that modifies the first optical wave, and a second optical wave, and to combine the first optical wave and the second optical wave to create an interference signal containing information about the stimulus, wherein optical fibre propagating either or both of the first optical wave and the second optical wave comprises hollow core optical fibre configured to propagate the optical wave or waves by an antiresonant optical guidance effect.

A hollow core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) including an outer cladding region and seven hollow tubes surrounded by the outer cladding region. Each of the hollow tubes is fused to the outer cladding to form a ring defining an inner cladding region and a hollow core region surrounded by the inner cladding region. The hollow tubes are not touching each other, but are arranged with distance to adjacent hollow tubes. The hollow tubes each have an average outer diameter d2 and an average inner diameter d1, wherein d1/d2 is equal to or larger than about 0.8, such as equal to or larger than about 0.85, such as equal to or larger than about 0.9. Also, a laser system.

A hollow-core anti-resonant-reflecting fibre (HC-AF) includes a hollow-core region, an inner cladding region, and an outer cladding region. The hollow-core region axially extends along the HC-AF. The inner cladding region includes a plurality of anti-resonant elements (AREs) and surrounds the hollow-core region. The outer cladding region surrounds the inner cladding region. The hollow-core region and the plurality of AREs are configured to provide phase matching of higher order hollow-core modes and ARE modes in a broadband wavelength range.

The invention generally relates to optical fibers, and, more particularly, to hollow-core optical fibers and cables for use in high-speed data transmission, including transmission of telecommunications data, and methods of manufacturing such hollow-core optical fibers and cables.

An IR-transmitting glass fiber configured to include a holey-microstructured core and a cladding surrounding the core. Glass material used at least in the core is one of the heavy metal oxide glasses, where the glass network former is an oxide selected from GeO.sub.2, TeO.sub.2, Sb.sub.2O.sub.3, and Bi.sub.2O.sub.3, while each and every component of the fiber includes only an oxide glass material and is devoid of any other materials.

A broadband radiation source device, including a fiber assembly having a plurality of optical fibers, each optical fiber being filled with a gas medium, wherein the broadband radiation source device is operable such that subsets of the optical fibers are independently selectable for receiving a beam of input radiation so as to generate a broadband output from only a subset of the plurality of optical fibers at any one time.