Multicomponent glass optical fibres with a lowered water content and reduced loss

A technique has been developed to reduce the ?OH content of multicomponent glasses. The glasses were treated with perfluoropropane and the linear absorption coefficient of ?OH reduced from typically 0.08 to as low as 0.01 cm^?1, which corresponds to a reduction of ?OH content to approximately 2 ppm. A fibre pulled from treated glasses had a reduced loss at 1.3 μm, and a loss of 2.9 dB km^?1 at 1.12 μm which is the lowest reported loss for a fibre prepared by a double crucible technique.