A supercontinuum source, comprises a pump source and a supercontinuum generator configured for receiving electromagnetic radiation derived from the pump source and for generating supercontinuum radiation, the supercontinuum generator comprising a nonlinear microstructured optical fibre having a core region comprising silica. The core region includes a dopant selected to reduce light-induced non-bridging oxygen hole centre loss in the nonlinear microstructured optical fibre.

A method for manufacturing an optical fibre includes placing the powdery substance compactly in the fluorine doped tube to form a core section. The core section of the glass preform is defined along a longitudinal axis of the glass preform. In particular, the fluorine doped tube is sintered to solidify the powdery substance. Moreover, the glass preform is heated at high temperature to draw the optical fibre.

A method for manufacturing of an optical fibre preform (100) using optimized core particles includes optimization of particles of calcium aluminum silicate powder (104), utilizing the optimized core particles, sintering the optimized core particles inside a fluorine doped glass tube (106) and drawing of an optical fibre. Particularly, the optimization of the particles of calcium aluminum silicate powder (104) facilitates formation of the optimized core particles and the optimized core particles are filled inside the fluorine doped glass tube (106). Moreover, sintering of the optimized core particles solidifies and adheres smoothly with the fluorine doped glass tube (106) for manufacturing of the optical fibre preform (100).

A method for drawing an optical fibre from an optical fibre preform with a core section, a cladding section, a first gap and a second gap. The optical fibre preform is attached to an optical fibre draw tower through a handle. In addition, the optical fibre preform is connected to a vacuum system to supply and remove gas from the first gap and the second gap. Moreover, the gas is supplied to create a thermal barrier between the core section and the cladding section during heating of the optical fibre preform. Further, the optical fibre preform is heated inside a heating furnace to draw the optical fibre from the optical fibre preform.

A reduced diameter optical fibre preform positioned along a longitudinal axis includes a core section defined around the longitudinal axis and a cladding section circumferentially surrounding the core section. The reduced diameter optical fibre preform is manufactured by utilizing a calcium aluminum silicate rod and a fluorine doped glass cylinder.

An optical fibre including a core region defined along a central longitudinal axis of the optical fibre and a cladding region concentrically surrounds the core region of the optical fibre. In particular, the core region has a first radius r.sub.1 and a first refractive index n.sub.1. Moreover, the cladding has a second radius r.sub.2 and a second refractive index n.sub.2. Furthermore, the optical fibre has a step index profile.

A method for adjusting an etchability of a first borosilicate glass by heating the first borosilicate glass; combining the first borosilicate glass with a second borosilicate glass to form a composite; and etching the composite with an etchant. A material having a protrusive phase and a recessive phase, where the protrusive phase protrudes from the recessive phase to form a plurality of nanoscale surface features, and where the protrusive phase and the recessive phase have the same composition.

A method is provided that includes: forming a low-index trench region with a first density; forming an inner barrier layer comprising silica around the trench region at a second density greater than the first density; depositing silica-based soot around the first barrier layer to form an overclad region at a third density less than the second density; inserting a core cane into a trench-overclad structure; forming an outer barrier layer comprising silica in an outer portion of the overclad region at a fourth density greater than the third density; flowing a down dopant-containing gas through the trench-overclad structure to dope the trench region with the down dopant, and wherein the barrier layers mitigate diffusion of the down-dopant into the overclad region; and consolidating the trench-overclad and the core cane.

Layered glass structures and fabrication methods are described. The methods include depositing soot on a dense glass substrate to form a composite structure and sintering the composite structure to form a layered glass structure. The dense glass substrate may be derived from an optical fiber preform that has been modified to include a planar surface. The composite structure may include one or more soot layers. The layered glass structure may be formed by combining multiple composite structures to form a stack, followed by sintering and fusing the stack. The layered glass structure may further be heated to softening and drawn to control linear dimensions. The layered glass structure or drawn layered glass structure may be configured as a planar waveguide.

Methods are known for producing an anti-resonant hollow-core fiber which has a hollow core extending along a fiber longitudinal axis and an inner jacket region that surrounds the hollow core, said jacket region comprising multiple anti-resonant elements. The known methods have the steps of: providing a cladding tube that has a cladding tube inner bore and a cladding tube longitudinal axis along which a cladding tube wall extends that is delimited by an interior and an exterior; providing a number of tubular anti-resonant element preforms; arranging the anti-resonant element preforms at target positions of the interior of the cladding tube wall, thereby forming a primary preform which has a hollow core region and an inner jacket region; and elongating the primary preform in order to form the hollow-core fiber or further processing the primary preform in order to form a secondary preform. The aim of the invention is to achieve a high degree of precision and an exact positioning of the anti-resonant elements in a sufficiently stable and reproducible manner on the basis of the aforementioned methods. This is achieved in that while carrying out a process according to step (c), components of the primary preform made of quartz glass and/or parts surrounding the primary preform made of quartz glass are heated and softened together, wherein the quartz glass of at least one of the preform components and/or the quartz glass of at least one of the parts surrounding the preform contains at least one dopant which decreases or increases the viscosity of quartz glass.