No abstract

We report an effectively single-moded, 1.7km long hollow core Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Fiber (NANF) with record-low 0.28dB/km loss from 1510 to 1600nm, which further reduces the loss gap with standard all-glass single mode fibers.

We report fabrication of a Nested Antiresonant Nodeless hollow-core Fibre (NANF) with a minimum loss of 1.3dB/km at 1450nm and a 65nm bandwidth below 1.5dB/km. The 0.5-km long fibre is effectively single moded and is shown capable of data transmission.

Using hollow-core NANFs with 5-nested-tubes, we achieve the lowest loss ever reported in a hollow core fiber at 1300 and 1625nm (0.22dB/km), and in any type of optical fiber at 850nm (0.6dB/km) and 1060nm (0.3dB/km).

For over 50 years, pure or doped silica glass optical fibres have been an unrivalled platform for the transmission of laser light and optical data at wavelengths from the visible to the near infra-red. Rayleigh scattering, arising from frozen-in density fluctuations in the glass, fundamentally limits the minimum attenuation of these fibres and hence restricts their application, especially at shorter wavelengths. Guiding light in hollow (air) core fibres offers a potential way to overcome this insurmountable attenuation limit set by the glass’s scattering, but requires reduction of all the other loss-inducing mechanisms. Here we report hollow core fibres, of nested antiresonant design, with losses comparable or lower than achievable in solid glass fibres around technologically relevant wavelengths of 660, 850, and 1060 nm. Their lower than Rayleigh scattering loss in an air-guiding structure offers the potential for advances in quantum communications, data transmission, and laser power delivery.