An embodiment of the present invention relates to an optical fiber preform production method and an optical fiber production method.
Generally, an optical fiber preform is produced by a preform production method including a step of producing a core preform to be a core after drawing and a step of producing a cladding preform (outer peripheral portion) to be provided on an outer peripheral surface of the core preform and to be a cladding after the drawing.
The step of producing the core preform includes a glass synthesis step and an aftertreatment step such as dehydration, sintering (including collapsing), and elongation, to be performed subsequent to the glass synthesis step. Particularly, in the glass synthesis step, for example, a glass preform is produced by stacking a plurality of glass layers. As a method of producing the glass preform, an outside approach type of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method in which a glass layer is formed on an outer peripheral surface of a glass deposition substrate and an inside approach type of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method in which the glass layer is formed on an inner peripheral surface of the glass deposition substrate are known.
Particularly, an outside vapor phase deposition (OVD) method disclosed in Patent Document 1 is known as an example of the outside approach type of CVD method and a plurality of glass layers are stacked by causing glass raw material gas supplied to an outer peripheral surface of a core rod prepared as the glass deposition substrate to be subjected to a flame hydrolysis reaction by an oxyhydrogen burner and depositing synthesized glass particles on the outer peripheral surface of the core rod.
On the other hand, a modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) method disclosed in Patent Document 2 and a plasma-activated chemical vapor deposition (PCVD) described in Patent Document 3 are known as examples of the inside approach type of CVD method. In both the MCVD method and the PCVD method, a hollow glass tube is used as the glass deposition substrate and the glass raw material gas introduced into the glass tube is subjected to an oxidation reaction, so that the synthesized glass particles are deposited on an inner peripheral surface of the glass tube. In the case of the MCVD method, the oxidation reaction in the glass tube is accelerated by heating the glass tube by the oxyhydrogen burner and in the case of the PCVD method, the oxidation reaction is accelerated by generating plasma in the glass tube by a high-frequency cavity disposed outside the glass tube.
The core preform having a refractive index profile according to a desired α-profile is obtained via the above glass synthesis step and a multimode optical fiber (hereinafter, referred to as the “MMF”) having a desired optical characteristic is obtained by drawing the optical fiber preform including the core preform.
For example, Patent Document 4 discloses technology for slightly modifying a refractive index profile of the core according to the α-profile and obtaining the MMF having a wider bandwidth characteristic. Patent Document 5 discloses technology for controlling a deviation between the refractive index profile in the core and the α-profile to be less than 0.0015% and obtaining the MMF having a bandwidth characteristic of 5000 MHz·km or more at an arbitrary wavelength included in a wavelength range of 800 nm or more. Furthermore, Patent Document 6 discloses an MMF production method that adjusts cladding synthesis as well as adjustment of a drawing tension and a core diameter, on the basis of a shape (fitting shape) of the refractive index profile of the core preform along a radial direction.
Patent Document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 8,815,103
Patent Document 2: U.S. Pat. No. 7,155,098
Patent Document 3: U.S. Pat. No. 7,759,874
Patent Document 4: U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,612
Patent Document 5: US Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2014/0119701
Patent Document 6: US Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013/0029038
As a result of examining the conventional optical fiber preform production method, the inventors have found the following problems. That is, all of the production methods disclosed in the above Patent Documents 1 to 6 require a long time to match the shape of the refractive index profile in the produced core preform with an ideal curve with high precision. Specifically, a preform producer frequently adjusts a doping amount of a refractive index adjusting agent depending on experience and the adjustment of the doping amount is ambiguous. Furthermore, if basic production conditions are different, it is necessary to accumulate a large number of data (experience) again to adjust the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent.
An embodiment of the present invention has been made to solve the above problems and an object thereof is to provide an optical fiber preform production method having a structure for matching a shape of a refractive index profile in a core preform with an ideal curve with high precision and in a short time and an optical fiber production method using an optical fiber preform.
In order to achieve the above object, an optical fiber preform production method according to the present embodiment comprises, at least, a glass synthesis step and a pretreatment step executed prior to the glass synthesis step, to produce a core preform. In the glass synthesis step, the core preform which extends along a center axis and constitutes a part of an optical fiber preform and in which a refractive index profile defined along a radial direction on a cross-section orthogonal to the center axis is adjusted to a predetermined shape, is produced.
Particularly, in the glass synthesis step, as a glass preform to be the core preform, glass particles synthesized while a doping amount of a refractive index adjusting agent M is adjusted are sequentially stacked on an inner peripheral surface or an outer peripheral surface of a glass deposition substrate extending along a direction matched with the center axis. As a result, the glass preform having a cross-section in which a plurality of glass layers are concentrically arranged so as to be matched with the cross-section of the core prefoini and surround the center axis is produced. Further, in the pretreatment step, setting of a division section to be an unit of doping amount control for the refractive index adjusting agent M, creation of glass synthesis actual-result data, calculation of a correlation, and determination of a theoretical doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M in the glass synthesis step are performed for an arbitrarily set adjustment region of a core preform sample produced in the past. In the setting of the division section, for one of a cross-section of an i-th (=1 to m) core preform sample among in (an integer of 2 or more) core preform samples produced in the past and the number of glass layers constituting an i-th glass preform sample having become the i-th core preform sample, the adjustment region is divided into n (an integer of 2 or more) sections along the radial direction and for the other, a region corresponding to the adjustment region is divided along the radial direction to correspond to the n division sections divided as described above on one-to-one basis. The glass synthesis actual-result data includes actual measurement data of a relative refractive index difference of a k-th (=1 to n) division section in the i-th core preform sample as refractive index profile data and includes doping amount data of the refractive index adjusting agent M doped to the k-th division section in the i-th glass preform sample as production condition data. In the calculation of the correlation, a correlation between a deviation of the actual measurement data of the relative refractive index difference with respect to a target value and the doping amount data of the refractive index adjusting agent M is calculated from glass synthesis actual-result data of the k-th division section of each of the m core preform samples. In the determination of the theoretical doping amount, a theoretical doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M in which an absolute value of the deviation is minimized is obtained from the correlation in the k-th division section of each of the m core preform samples.
In the glass synthesis step, one or more glass layers belonging to a k-th glass synthesis section corresponding to the k-th division section of each of the m core preform samples are sequentially formed on the inner peripheral surface or the outer peripheral surface of the glass deposition substrate, in a state in which the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M to be supplied at the time of synthesizing the glass particles is adjusted to the theoretical doping amount.
Each embodiment of the present invention can be more fully understood by the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings. These embodiments are merely exemplary and should not be considered as limiting the present invention.
An additional application range of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples showing the preferred embodiments of the invention are merely exemplary and various modifications and improvements within a scope of the present invention will be obvious to those skilled in the art from the detailed description.
According to the present embodiment, it is possible to match a shape of a refractive index profile in a core preform with an ideal curve with high precision and in a short time. Further, since variations of desired optical characteristics are suppressed between produced optical fibers, a production yield of the optical fibers can be improved.
First, contents of embodiments of the present invention will be individually enumerated and described.
(1) As one aspect, an optical fiber preform production method according to the present embodiment comprises at least a glass synthesis step and a pretreatment step executed prior to the glass synthesis step, to produce a core preform. In the glass synthesis step, a glass preform to be the core preform which extends along a center axis and constitutes a part of an optical fiber preform and in which a refractive index profile defined along a radial direction on a cross-section orthogonal to the center axis is adjusted to a predetermined shape, is produced.
Particularly, in the glass synthesis step, as the glass preform, glass particles synthesized while a doping amount of a refractive index adjusting agent M is adjusted are sequentially stacked on an inner peripheral surface or an outer peripheral surface of a glass deposition substrate extending along a direction matched with the center axis. As a result, the glass preform having a cross-section in which a plurality of glass layers are concentrically arranged so as to be matched with the cross-section of the core preform and surround the center axis is produced. Further, in the pretreatment step, setting of a division section to be an unit of doping amount control for the refractive index adjusting agent M, creation of glass synthesis actual-result data, calculation of a correlation, and determination of a theoretical doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M in the glass synthesis step are performed for an arbitrarily set adjustment region of a core preform sample produced in the past. In the setting of the division section, for one of a cross-section of an i-th (=1 to m) core preform sample among m (an integer of 2 or more) core preform samples produced in the past and the number of glass layers constituting an i-th glass preform sample having become the i-th core preform sample, the adjustment region is divided into n (an integer of 2 or more) sections along the radial direction and for the other, a region corresponding to the adjustment region is divided along the radial direction to correspond to the n division sections divided as described above on one-to-one basis. For the adjustment region, an entire range of the core preform sample along the radial direction may be set or a part thereof may be set.
The division sections in the set adjustment region may be sections divided equally or sections with different sizes along the radial direction. Further, a plurality of adjustment regions may be set in a state of being continuous or separated. A division section size of a certain adjustment region among the plurality of adjustment regions does not need to be matched with a division section size of other adjustment region. In this case, rough doping amount adjustment (a division size is set to be large) can be performed at the side of the center axis of the core preform to be produced, whereas fine doping amount adjustment (the division size is set to be small) can be performed at the outer side.
The glass synthesis actual-result data includes actual measurement data of a relative refractive index difference of a k-th (=1 to n) division section in the i-th core preform sample as refractive index profile data and includes doping amount data of the refractive index adjusting agent M added to the k-th division section in the i-th glass preform sample as production condition data. In the calculation of the correlation, a correlation between a deviation of the actual measurement data of the relative refractive index difference with respect to a target value and the doping amount data of the refractive index adjusting agent M is calculated from glass synthesis actual-result data of the k-th division section of each of the m core preform samples. In the determination of the theoretical doping amount, a theoretical doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M in which an absolute value of the deviation is minimized is obtained from the correlation in the k-th division section of each of the in core preform samples.
In the glass synthesis step, one or more glass layers belonging to a k-th glass synthesis section corresponding to the k-th division section of each of the m core preform samples are sequentially formed on the inner peripheral surface or the outer peripheral surface of the glass deposition substrate, in a state in which the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M to be supplied at the time of synthesizing the glass particles is adjusted to the theoretical doping amount.
(2) As one aspect of the present embodiment, an outer periphery radius rk of the k-th division section to be an index representing the k-th division section in the i-th core preform sample and a k-th glass synthesis section lk in the i-th glass preform sample preferably satisfy a relation of the following expression (1) by a predetermined function f.
Where the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent M in the k-th division section of the i-th core preform sample to be the glass synthesis actual-result data of the i-th core preform sample is set to M(rk)i and a deviation of the relative refractive index difference in the k-th division section of the i-th core preform sample is set to ε(rk)i, a theoretical doping amount M(rk)opt of the refractive index adjusting agent M in the k-th division section of the core preform to be produced is preferably given by the following expression (2), and a theoretical doping amount M(lk)opt of the refractive index adjusting agent M in the k-th glass synthesis section lk to be produced in the glass preform to be the core preform is preferably given by the theoretical doping amount M(rk)opt of the refractive index adjusting agent M in rk associated with lk by the above expression (1).
(3) As one aspect of the present embodiment, the refractive index adjusting agent M preferably includes one kind of dopant. Further, as one aspect of the present embodiment, the refractive index adjusting agent M preferably includes germanium.
(4) As one aspect of the present embodiment, the refractive index adjusting agent M may include one kind of first dopant and one or more kinds of second dopants. In this case, in the glass synthesis step, a doping amount of the first dopant is preferably adjusted for each glass synthesis section to be formed, in a state in which doping conditions of the second dopants are fixed during a period where n glass synthesis sections are formed. As one aspect of the present embodiment, the refractive index adjusting agent M preferably includes two or more kinds of dopants selected from germanium, phosphorus, fluorine, and boron. As one aspect of the present embodiment, the first dopant preferably includes germanium.
(5) As one aspect of the present embodiment, the optical fiber preform production method may further include a sintering step of sintering the glass preform to cause the glass preform produced by the glass synthesis step to be transparent.
(6) As one aspect, an optical fiber production method according to the present embodiment produces a desired optical fiber by preparing the optical fiber preform including the core preform produced by the optical fiber preform production method and drawing one end of the optical fiber preform while heating one end. In this case, the optical fiber to be produced includes a core extending along the center axis and a cladding covering an outer peripheral surface of the core along the center axis. In addition, a deviation of a refractive index profile in the core of the optical fiber from a target refractive index profile is preferably 0.002% or less as a relative refractive index difference with respect to a refractive index of pure silica glass.
(7) As one aspect, an optical fiber production method according to the present embodiment may produce an MMF by preparing the optical fiber preform produced by the optical fiber preform production method and including a core preform having a refractive index profile according to an α-profile along the radial direction orthogonal to the center axis and drawing one end of the optical fiber preform while heating one end. In this case, the MMF to be produced includes a core extending along the center axis and a cladding covering an outer peripheral surface of the core along the center axis. To guarantee broadband optical transmission, in the MMF, an a value defining the shape of the α-profile is preferably in a range of 1.9 to 2.3. In addition, an effective bandwidth EMB(λ) at an arbitrary wavelength λ(nm) included in a range of 800 to 1000 nm is preferably −20·λ+21700 MHz·km or more.
Each aspect enumerated in the “description of embodiments of present invention” can be applied to all of the remaining aspects or all combinations of these remaining aspects.
Specific examples of the optical fiber preform production method and the optical fiber production method according to the embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference with the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the embodiments of the present invention are not limited to these examples, but are indicated by claims and it is intended to include all changes in meanings and ranges equivalent to the claims. In the description of the drawings, the same elements are denoted by the same reference numerals and redundant explanations are omitted.
An optical fiber preform 100 shown in
Further, as shown in
Δ={1−(n0/n)2}/2 (3)
Further, the α-profile refers to a refractive index profile where a radius with the center axis AX as an origin is set to r, a core radius is set to a, a relative refractive index difference on the center axis AX is set to Δ0, a relative refractive index difference in a core outer edge is set to A0e, a relative refractive index difference in the cladding 110B is set to Δ1, and a relative refractive index difference Δ between the core 110A and the cladding 110B is represented by the following expression (4). Even if there are variations in additive concentrations caused by production and variations in refractive indexes due to mixing of impurities, the refractive index profile may be regarded as the α-profile roughly in accordance with the expression (4).
In an example of
One end of the optical fiber 110 having the above structure is heated by a heater 300 and softened, as shown in
The bandwidth of the MMF depends on how a plurality of waveguide modes of the MMF are excited by a light source. As an index representing a typical bandwidth when the mode is excited by a surface emitting type semiconductor laser (VCSEL: Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) widely used as a light source in short distance information communication, an effective modal bandwidth (EMB) is defined. The EMB is obtained by the following expression (5) by calculating a calculated minimum effective modal bandwidth (minEMBc) from a measurement result of a differential mode delay (DMD) of the MMF. The details of this calculation method are defined in IEC 60793-1-49:2006 and IEC 60793-2-10:2011.
EMB=1.13×min EMBc (5)
Next,
The optical fiber preform production method according to the present embodiment includes a core preform production step ST100, an actual measurement step ST200 of acquiring refractive index profile data of the core preform 10 obtained through the core preform production step ST100, an outer peripheral portion production step (cladding preform production step) ST300 of forming the cladding preform 20 to be the cladding 110B on an outer peripheral surface of the obtained core preform 10, and a drawing step ST400 of drawing the optical fiber preform 100 obtained through the outer peripheral portion production step ST300 as shown in
The core preform production step ST100 includes a pretreatment step ST110, a glass synthesis step ST120, and an aftertreatment step ST130. In the pretreatment step ST110, setting of n (an integer of 2 or more) glass synthesis sections which are divided in advance and of which each section functions as an unit of doping amount control for a refractive index adjusting agent in the glass synthesis step ST120, creation of glass synthesis actual-result data 500 to determine the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent to be doped with each glass synthesis section, calculation of a correlation between past doping amount data and a deviation (error of the doping amount with respect to a target value) thereof, and determination of a theoretical doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent for each glass synthesis section are performed. The glass synthesis actual-result data 500 includes refractive index profile data 520 measured in the actual measurement step ST200 for each of m (an integer of 2 or more) core preform samples produced in the past and production condition data 510 of m glass preform samples that have become the m core preform samples. In the present specification, the m glass preforms which are produced in the past and of which the production condition data is already stored in a memory (refer to
In the glass synthesis step ST120, as the glass preform to be the core preform 10, the glass particles synthesized while the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent is adjusted are sequentially stacked on an inner peripheral surface or an outer peripheral surface of a glass deposition substrate extending along a direction matched with the center axis AX. As a result, the glass preform having the cross-section in which a plurality of glass layers are concentrically arranged so as to be matched with the cross-section of the core preform 10 and surround the center axis AX is produced. It should be noted that each glass synthesis section to be an unit of doping amount control for the refractive index adjusting agent includes one or more glass layers. In addition, the doping amount of the refractive index adjusting agent in each glass synthesis section in the glass synthesis step ST120 is added to the production condition data 510 together with past data.
The glass preform 200 in the glass synthesis step ST120 is produced by a production apparatus shown in
The OVD production apparatus 600A of
As shown in
On the other hand, as shown in
As shown on a left side of
In the optical fiber preform production method according to the present embodiment, in the glass synthesis step ST120, the entire region of the doping amount adjustment section (glass synthesis section) of the refractive index adjusting agent is divided into the n sections as the adjustment region and optimization control of the flow rate (Ge doping amount) of GeCl4 by the controller 660A is performed for each of the divided glass synthesis sections. Each glass synthesis section corresponds to a layer region including one or more glass layers 201 in the cross-section of each of the m glass preform samples 200 produced in the past. In addition, the glass synthesis section may be a section obtained by equally dividing the number (for example, 500 layers) of glass layers 201 constituting the produced glass preform sample 200 by n along the radial direction or may be obtained by equally dividing the cross-section radius of the m core preform samples 10 produced in the past by n.
The OVD production apparatus 600A for executing the glass synthesis step ST120 is an apparatus for producing the glass preform 200 by the so-called outside approach type of CVD method. However, the glass preform 200 for the core preform can be produced by the inside approach type of CVD method represented by an MCVD method or a PCVD method.
An inside approach type of CVD production apparatus 600B of
As shown in
When the inside approach type of CVD production apparatus 600B of
On the other hand, when the inside approach type of CVD production apparatus 600B of
In step ST112, for each glass synthesis section, the glass synthesis actual-result data of the same glass synthesis section of each of the m glass synthesis actual-result data 500 created as described above is collected. For example, in the example of
In step ST113, the correlation shown in
The above expression (6) is expanded to find an inclination A and an intercept B of an approximation straight line G1000 in which the square sum S(A,B) is minimized. At this time, two partial differential equations represented by the following expression (7) are established. One of these partial differential equations is a linear equation that is obtained by differentiating the expansion expression of the square sum S(A,B) with respect to the inclination A and has the inclination A as a variable and the other is a linear equation that is obtained by differentiating the expansion expression of the square sum S(A,B) with respect to the intercept B and has the intercept B as a variable. Therefore, from simultaneous linear equations having the inclination A and the intercept B as variables, the inclination A and the intercept B are obtained as shown in the following expression (8).
Particularly, as shown in
If the variables xi and yi in the above expression (9) are set to an doping amount Ge(rk)i and a deviation ε(rk)i of Ge in the k-th division section rk in the i-th core preform sample among the m core preform samples produced in the past, respectively, for xy=0, a theoretical doping amount Ge(rk)opt of Ge (the refractive index adjusting agent) in the k-th division section rk of the core preform to be produced is given by the following expression (10) and a theoretical doping amount Ge(lk)opt of Ge in the k-th glass synthesis section lk in the glass preform to be the core preform is given by a theoretical doping amount Ge(rk)opt of Ge in rk associated with lk by the above expression (1).
As described above, if the theoretical doping amount of Ge in each glass synthesis section is determined in the pretreatment step ST110, in the glass synthesis step ST120, a counter showing the glass synthesis section to be a treatment target is initialized (ST121) and flow rate control of Ge is performed for all the glass synthesis sections (ST122 and ST128). The controllers 660A and 660B respectively control the mixing valves 641A and 641B of the material gas supply systems 640A and 640B and the flow rate adjusters so that the doping amount becomes the theoretical doping amount Ge(lk)opt of the k-th glass synthesis section lk to be the treatment target (ST123). Then, a counter showing one or more glass layers belonging to the k-th glass synthesis section lk is initialized (ST124) and glass synthesis is performed (ST125) while the number of glass layers deposited on the inner peripheral surface or the outer peripheral surface of the glass deposition substrate is counted (ST126 and ST127). The glass synthesis (ST125) is performed for all the glass layers belonging to the k-th glass synthesis section lk (ST126). If the above steps ST123 to ST127 are executed for all the glass synthesis sections, the aftertreatment step ST130 is performed subsequent to the glass synthesis step ST120.
In the case where there are a plurality of glass layers belonging to the k-th glass synthesis section lk, the theoretical doping amount of Ge in each glass layer belonging to the glass synthesis section lk may be constant with Ge(lk)opt. However, the theoretical doping amount may be changed linearly, for example, so as to gradually change toward the (k+1)-th glass synthesis section lk+1, or may be changed in a curve shape using an arbitrary function so as to be smoothly connected.
In the above example, the adjustment region in which the equally divided division sections are set is set over the entire range of the core preform sample along the radial direction. However, the setting of the adjustment region in the present embodiment is not limited to this example. That is, a part of the core preform sample along the radial direction may be set to the adjustment region. The division sections in the set adjustment region may be sections with different sizes along the radial direction. Further, a plurality of adjustment regions may be set in a state of being continuous or separated. The division section size of a certain adjustment region among the plurality of adjustment regions may be different from the division section size of other adjustment region.
From the above description of the present invention, it is apparent that the present invention can be variously modified. Such variations cannot be regarded as departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention and improvements obvious to all those skilled in the art are included in the following claims.
10 . . . core preform (core preform sample); 15 . . . core preform sample group; 20 . . . cladding preform (outer peripheral portion); 100 . . . optical fiber preform; 110A . . . core; 110B . . . cladding; 110 . . . optical fiber; 200 . . . glass preform (glass prefo m sample); 250 . . . glass preform sample group; 500 . . . glass synthesis actual-result data; 510 . . . production condition data; and 520 . . . refractive index profile data.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2016-151766 | Aug 2016 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2017/027891 | 8/1/2017 | WO | 00 |