Air-structured optical fiber drawn from a 3D-printed preform

Abstract

A structured optical fibre is drawn from a 3D-printed structured preform. Preforms containing a single ring of holes around the core are fabricated using filament made from a modified butadiene polymer. More broadly, 3D printers capable of processing soft glasses, silica and other materials are likely to come on line in the not-so-distant future. 3D printing of optical preforms signals a new milestone in optical fibre manufacture.In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in 3D printing technologies and there is now a vast range of 3D printing methods that are finding new applications every day in a whole host of areas from science and engineering to medicine and the arts [1]. They are set to revolutionise manufacturing. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is one of the most commonly used techniques, being the first and simplest demonstration of 3D printing in the late 1980s [2]. It is especially suited for instrument prototype casings such as those required for novel smartphone spectrometers [3]. In FDM, a polymer is fed through a heated nozzle which melts the polymer -essentially a fancy thermal glue gun using a finite extrusion nozzle with programmable xyz positioning capability. Optical polymerisation methods using both light emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers offer higher resolution and are increasingly popular; however, they do not have the same material range given the specific absorption and monomer polymerization requirements. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is another popular technique where a high power laser is utilised to fuse not only plastic, but glass, metal or ceramic particles or powders into 3D objects [4]. A 3D profile is achieved by scanning the laser on the horizontal plane layer-by-layer, lowering the printing bed between each layer. All these methods have their particular rate limiting steps determined by the consolidation process details and the need for full xyz scanning. More recently, holographic imaging using projectors promises significantly accelerated production of the 3D printed object by removing the requirement for xy scanning [5]. FDM, SLS and other related variants are experiencing tremendous growth world-wide, particularly for rapid prototyping and manufacturing. 3D printing is also being applied to cellular assembly processing of biomedical interest [6]. 3D printing technologies are reaching most fields, including more recently photonics. For example, a company called Luxexcel is already producing high transparency Fresnel lenses by printing with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) filament [7]. Most interesting, is recent work demonstrating directprint short, solid plastic fibre [8] and "light pipes" [9] using transparent polymers, the first 3D printed waveguides.Here, we explore harnessing 3D printing for optical fibre fabrication. We see it as revolutionising the manufacture of all optical fibre fabrication, including glass optical fibres as 3D glass printing comes on line [10,11]. Whilst there is debate as to the merits of the technology for conventional step-index...

Drawing optical fibers from three-dimensional printers

“…This may suggest an air gap between the two materials, new information that is valuable to improving the engineering design of the printer. The overall assessment of these printers is that they have excellent extrusion heating elements making them potentially ideal analogous microfurnaces for drawing optical fibre directly, rather than only fabricate optical preforms and draw subsequently into fibre form on a specialized draw tower [1,2]. To test this potential, we used the Flashforge printer, since it provided the most reliable thermal distribution, as a micro-furnace for drawing optical fibre.…”

3D printing, photonics and the IoT

“…Light is found to guide in all regions of the fibre but further improvements in fabrication, for example the use of hole pressurisation, will help reduce the thickness of strands between air holes leading to core confinement. Cut-back losses were found to be: α ~ 1.5 dB/cm @ 632 nm, α ~ 0.75 dB/cm @ 1064 nm, and α ~ 1.51 dB/cm @ 1550 nm , demonstrating complete removal of scatter from the 3D printed layers of the preform [16]. A step index fibre was also printed.…”

Recent Progress in Biomimetic Additive Manufacturing Technology: From Materials to Functional Structures

“…To simplify the fabrication process, multiscale structures were also fabricated by a single 3D‐printing process. For example, optical fiber inspired by lotus root with a macroscale solid core surrounded by microscale air holes is fabricated by FDM process using transparent thermosetting polymer ( Figure a) . Patterned photonic crystal (PC) domes with angle‐independent photonic bandgaps were fabricated by the inkjet printing process.…”

“…a) 3D optical fiber with multiscale features by printed FDM process. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2015, Optical Society of America.…”