A Case History of Materials Development: Optical Fibers

Materials development of glass for optical waveguides has progressed through three generations of processes. Not only have these produced silica glass having impurity levels in the part-per-million range but also is made into sophisticated designs to control chromatic dispersion, polarization and to serve as optic sensors. Now a possible fourth generation process using sol-gel is being investigated as a means of producing the billions of kilometers necessary to "wire" the world's telecommunications network.