Next-generation fibers: optical fibres go nano

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Description/Abstract

The manufacture of nanowires from optical fibers provides the longest, most uniform and robust nanowires. Most important, the low optical loss associated to small surface roughness and high homogeneity allows the use of nanowires for optical applications and opens the way to a host of new optical devices for communications, sensing, biology and chemistry. Additionally, optical fiber nanowires are fabricated by adiabatically stretching optical fibers and thus preserve the original optical fiber dimensions at their input and output allowing ready splicing to standard fibers and fiber components. These fiber pigtails have macroscopic dimensions and allow the manipulation of a single nanowire without the expensive instrumentation typical of the nano-world.