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uoa) and Bertrand Gauvreau Génie Physique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada

Mahmoud Rajabian Génie Physique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada; and Génie Chimique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada

Olga Skorobogata McGill University, Montréal, Montréal H3A 2T5, Canada

Elio Pone, Oleg Zabeida, and Ludvik Martinu Génie Physique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada

Charles Dubois Génie Chimique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada

Maksim Skorobogatiyb) Génie Physique, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal H3C 3A7, Canada (Received 8 January 2006; accepted 20 April 2006)

All-polymer multilayer hollow core photonic fiber preforms were fabricated using consecutive deposition from a solvent phase of two polymers with high and low refractive indices (RI). Processing techniques for two polymer pairs—polystyrene (PS)/poly(methyl methylacrylate) (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC)/poly(vinylene difloride) (PVDF)—were established. The fabrication process involved consecutive film deposition by solvent evaporation of polymer solutions on the inside of a rotating PMMA or PC tube, used as a cladding material. By injecting right volumes of the polymer solutions into a spinning tube the thickness of each layer could be reliably controlled from 20 to 100 ␮m. Proper selection of solvents and processing conditions was crucial for ensuring high optical and mechanical quality of a resultant preform, as well as compatibility of different polymer films during co-deposition. Preforms of 10 layers for PMMA/PS material combination and 15 layers for PVDF/PC were demonstrated. Fabrication of preforms with higher number of layers is readily possible and is only a question of preform fabrication time. An alternative method of preform fabrication by co-rolling of polymer bilayers is also presented in this paper, drawing of PMMA/PS, PVDF/PC fibers with up to 32 layers is demonstrated.

I. INTRODUCTION

High laser power delivery and sensing using near- and mid-infrared (IR) radiation (wavelength range 1–12 ␮m) have been active areas of applied optics in the past decade due to some crucial advantages offered by the IR wavelength range.1–4 Hollow-core multilayer and microstructured fibers for radiation guiding in the IR5–11 have recently received considerable attention as a)

These authors contributed equally to this work. Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2006.0271 b)

2246 J. Mater. Res., Vol. 21, No. 9, Sep 2006 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 24 Feb 2015

they promise important advantages over their solid-core counterparts in applications related to high power guidance at almost any IR wavelength for military, industry, and medical applications, as well as IR imaging and sensing. Recently, hollow-core fibers were also investigated for guidance of very long wavelengths (␭ ∼ 100 ␮m) in a THz range for chemical sensor and time-resolved measurement application