Fiber Tapering Facility

- PCF and tapers

The fibre taper rig is a computer controlled machine which heats and stretches optical fibre to produce a fibre taper. The taper profiles are tailored by the appropriate choice of flame brushing profile, elongation and rate of elongation. The taper rig is used to modify the physical properties of both conventional as well as microstructured fibers for the various projects currently underway. These include shifting the fundamental band gap of photonic crystal fibre, micro-pipettes for micro-fluidic experiments, nano-wires for photonic circuits and super-continuum generation.

A second taper rig is currently being assembled within the CUDOS clean room to augment the current facility. This rig will be able to produce longer, thinner tapers and as well as chalcogenide glass tapers for non linear experiments.