Glass and Fibre
OptoFab Adelaide has a rare combination of glass science, fibre fabrication research facilities and expertise, enabling the realisation of glass and fibres with unique and novel properties.
The Adelaide facilities include equipment for batching, melting, casting and annealing in a controlled atmosphere, enabling the manufacture of glass with customised dimensions from traditional and novel glass compositions, including rare earth-doped glasses.
Along with its glass manufacturing capabilities, Optofab Adelaide can process and machine a large range of materials, including those in the table below, using melting, extrusion, drawing, milling and 3D printing capabilities.
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Material Range Overview: Table
Material type Supply/fabrication Silica Commercial Fluoride In-house Tellurite In-house Germanate In-house Lead-silicate Commercial Borosilicate Commercial Soda-lime-silicate Commercial Other silicates On request Polymer Commercial
The glass melting facilities support the fabrication of a range of oxide and fluoride glasses with transmission ranging from UV to mid-infrared.
Specialised glass manufacturing
High-quality specialised glass with custom optical properties
- ZBLAN glass
- Tellurite glass
- Mid IR transmitting glasses
Exceptional know-how
Optofab employs highly skilled scientists, engineers, and technicians with extensive knowledge and experience in glass manufacturing and photonics. They can provide valuable guidance and expertise to researchers and companies looking to develop novel optical devices and components.
Extrusion capability for small to large-scale manufacturing of unique and specialised preforms for optimised optical fibre production.
Preform Fabrication Techniques
Optofab Adelaide has the capability to produce an almost unlimited range of structures through diverse preform fabrication techniques such as extrusion, milling, stacking and since recently 3D glass printing.
Materials: Polymer, soft glass, hard glass, doped silica, F2, BK7 Duran and SAL.
Preform structures
Broad range of microstructured fibre designs serving as the guiding structure for light propagation within the final optical fibre.
- Multi-hole structures with large and small air-filling fractions.
- Hexagonal arrays of up to 160 air holes.
- Negative curvature hollow-core structures.
- Multi-material such as core/clad preforms.
Soft glass, silica and polymer fibre drawing capabilities, including microstructured fibres.
Optical fibre manufacturing
Optofab Adelaide houses two fibre drawing towers, 4m and 6m. Both towers are equipped with acrylate coating capability to apply a polymer coating in situ during fibre drawing. This versatility allows for the production of different types of optical fibres suitable for a wide range of applications.
The towers can fabricate canes of 0.5-3mm diameter and fibres of 100-400μm outer diameter from preforms with diameters ranging from 8-30mm and a large range of cross-sectional structures.
Drawn preforms can be made of polymer and glass materials, including silica-based glasses. This flexibility ensures the fabrication of optical fibres to meet the demands of a wide array of industries.
Let's work together
OptoFab Adelaide work as a multidisciplinary team ready to help with any projects.