One aspect relates to a process for the preparation of a quartz glass body including, providing a silicon dioxide granulate obtainable from a silicon dioxide powder, wherein the silicon dioxide granulate has a larger particle size than the silicon dioxide powder, making a 5 glass melt out of silicon dioxide granulate and making a quartz glass body out of at least part of the glass melt. The melting crucible has at least one inlet and at least one outlet. A least part of the glass melt is removed via the melting crucible outlet. One aspect further relates to a quartz glass body which is obtainable by this process. One aspect further relates to a light guide, an illuminant and a formed body, which are each obtainable by further processing 10 of the quartz glass body.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a preform for optical fibers, which method comprises the sequential steps of: i) deposition of non-vitrified silica layers on the inner surface of a hollow substrate tube; ii) deposition of vitrified silica layers inside the hollow substrate tube on the inner surface of the non-vitrified silica layers deposited in step i); iii) removal of the hollow substrate tube from the vitrified silica layers deposited in step ii) and the non-vitrified silica layers deposited in step i) to obtain a deposited tube; iv) optional collapsing said deposited tube obtained in step iii) to obtain a deposited rod comprising from the periphery to the center at least one inner optical cladding and an optical core; v) preparation of an intermediate layer by the steps of: * deposition of non-vitrified silica layers on the outside surface of the deposited tube obtained in step iii) or deposited rod obtained in step iv) with a flame hydrolysis process in an outer reaction zone using glass-forming precursors, and subsequently; * drying and consolidating said non-vitrified silica layers into a vitrified fluorine-doped silica intermediate cladding layer; and * in case preceding step iv) was omitted collapsing; to provide a solid rod comprising from the periphery to the center the intermediate layer, at least one inner optical cladding and an optical core; wherein a fluorine-comprising gas is used during the deposition and/or drying and/or consolidating and wherein the intermediate layer has a ratio between the outer diameter of the intermediate cladding layer (C) to the outer diameter of the optical core (A) that is at least 3.5; vi) deposition of natural silica on the outside surface of the intermediate cladding layer of the solid rod obtained in step v) by melting natural silica particles in an outer deposition zone to produce an outer cladding whereby a preform is obtained.

The invention relates to an optical fiber preform (20) comprising a primary preform (21) and one or more purified silica-based overclad layers (22) surrounding said primary preform (21), the purified silica-based overclad layers (22) comprising lithium and aluminium, and having a ratio between lithium concentration [Li] and aluminium concentration [Al] satisfying the following inequality:
1×10.sup.−3≤[Li]/[Al]≤20×10.sup.−3.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a preform for optical fibers, which method comprises the sequential steps of: i) deposition of non-vitrified silica layers on the inner surface of a hollow substrate tube; ii) deposition of vitrified silica layers inside the hollow substrate tube on the inner surface of the non-vitrified silica layers deposited in step i); iii) removal of the hollow substrate tube from the vitrified silica layers deposited in step ii) and the non-vitrified silica layers deposited in step i) to obtain a deposited tube; iv) optional collapsing said deposited tube obtained in step iii) to obtain a deposited rod comprising from the periphery to the center at least one inner optical cladding and an optical core; v) preparation of an intermediate layer by the steps of: *deposition of non-vitrified silica layers on the outside surface of the deposited tube obtained in step iii) or deposited rod obtained in step iv) with a flame hydrolysis process in an outer reaction zone using glass-forming precursors, and subsequently; *drying and consolidating said non-vitrified silica layers into a vitrified fluorine-doped silica intermediate cladding layer; and *in case preceding step iv) was omitted collapsing; to C provide a solid rod comprising from the periphery to the center the intermediate layer, at least one inner optical cladding and an optical core; wherein a fluorine-comprising gas is used during the deposition and/or drying and/or consolidating and wherein the intermediate layer has a ratio between the outer diameter of the intermediate cladding layer (C) to the outer diameter of the optical core (A) that is at least 3.5; vi) deposition of natural silica on the outside surface of the intermediate cladding layer of the solid rod obtained in step v) by melting natural silica particles in an outer deposition zone to produce an outer cladding whereby a preform is obtained.

The invention relates to a process for the preparation of a quartz glass body comprising the process steps i.) Providing a silicon dioxide granulate obtainable from a silicon dioxide powder, wherein the silicon dioxide granulate has a larger particle size than the silicon dioxide powder, ii.) Making a glass melt out of silicon dioxide granulate and iii.) Making a quartz glass body out of at least part of the glass melt, wherein the melting crucible has at least one inlet and at least one outlet, wherein at least part of the glass melt is removed via the melting crucible outlet. The invention further relates to a quartz glass body which is obtainable by this process. The invention further relates to a light guide, an illuminant and a formed body, which are each obtainable by further processing of the quartz glass body.

A quartz glass tube as a semi-finished product for an optical component that has an inner bore extending along a tube center axis for the acceptance of a core rod and a tube wall limited by an inner casing surface and an outer casing surface is already known; within said tube wall an inner region made of a first quartz glass and an outer region made of a second quartz glass with a different index of refraction surrounding the inner region contact one another at a contact surface which runs around the center axis. In order to provide a quartz glass on this basis that facilitates the production of optical components for special applications such as laser-activated optical components in wand or fiber form, the invention states that the contact surface has a non-round course in the radial cross-section and the inner casing surface has a circular course.