Non-circular glass metal composite fibre

Bastock, P., Khan, K. and Hewak, D. (2012) Non-circular glass metal composite fibre. International Symposium on Non-Oxide Glasses and New Optical Glasses (ISNOG 2012), St Malo, France. 30 Jun - 05 Jul 2012.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

A novel method to produce metal in glass preform and fibre with complex non-circular cross section is presented. The method involves firstly using conventional glass cutting facilities to cut glass pieces into various key shapes. The complex non-circular pattern is built up using the cut glass and metal insert, after which the pieces are fused within a furnace. This consolidation is a key step to maintaining geometry during fibre drawing. The metal and glass are selected on a basis of their thermal properties such as coefficient of thermal expansion, and their glass transition, softening and melting temperatures. Traditional methods of fabricating a preform involve ultrasonic milling and drilling of bulk glass or extrusion of glass using complex dies. These approaches are expensive and time consuming, shape limited and for some materials can be temperature limited. The proposed stack and draw method potentially allows for making smaller feature sizes. Applications obtainable from making metal in fibres from this method include the transfer of photons and electrons simultaneously in optoelectronic products. Also, use as metal reinforced glass-matrix composite fibres will be discussed.

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