Gamma-ray-radiation-induced damage to silicon single-mode fiber

The gamma-ray-radiation -induced damage to silicon single -mode fiber is reported. The immediate radiation-induced attenuation of the 10 m fiber under total dose 10⁴ rad is 8.98 dB/km, which was tolerable. Some disastrous attenuation was found a half-hour later, which rapidly increased to 642.53 dB/km. No obvious spectral variation after radiation was found, except for the decreases of the spectrum power. The optical recovery phenomenon was noticed 2 days after radiation and the output spectrum power has increased from 145.5 to 185.6 μW during 9 days. The experimental results have shown that the composition and its absorptivity of optical fibers play a more important role than total dose in determining the radiation-induced attenuation.