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.

Glass fabrication equipment

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.

  • 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

Image of glass manufacturing

High-quality specialised glass with custom optical properties

  • ZBLAN glass
  • Tellurite glass
  • Mid IR transmitting glasses

ZBLAN Glass Flyer

Tellurite Glass Flyer


Exceptional know-how

Glass Manufacturing

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

Preform

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

Preform

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

Fibre Drawing

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.

Optical Fibre

Let's work together

OptoFab Adelaide work as a multidisciplinary team ready to help with any projects.

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