<title>High-temperature sputtered coatings for optical fiber</title>

Abstract

We have developed a magnetron sputter coating method to continuously coat silica optical fibers with a dual layer coating of Inconel 625 alloy and platinum. The coating process is performed on-line as the fiber is drawn to minimize the rapid strength degradation of the silica due to attack by moisture in the air. Because of the modular design of the sputter equipment, the process is well suited for the deposition of a wide variety of metals and is readily adapted for scale-up. Multimode optical fibers were produced with coatings up to 0.5 microns in thickness consisting of an adhesion layer of Inconel and an outer layer of platinum. The coatings are adherent and remain mechanically intact after thermal cycling between room temperature and 2000° F in vacuum. Approximate tensile strengths of 145 to 290 Kpsi have been measured. These attributes make this sputter coated fiber a promising candidate for use in high temperature environments.

Fabrication of Bragg Gratings on the End Facet of Standard Optical Fibers by Sputtering the Same Material

“…The fine tuning of the sputtering condition (power, current, vacuum pressure, gas flow rate, etc.) allows one to have excellent control over the thickness of the deposited films, making sputtering a useful tool for depositing coatings on optical fibers [2]- [5]. In fact, sputtering has been used to fabricate nano-Fabry-Perot interferometers on the end facet of optical fibers in order to develop devices for different sensing Manuscript submitted September 27, 2016.…”