Frequency doubling, absorption and grating deformation in glass fibres: effective defects or defective effects?

The present understanding of colour centres in germanosilicate glass fibres and the diverse effects attributed to colour centre activity are reviewed. Drawing on a wide range of up-to-date research results, an attempt is made to piece together as far as possible a unified picture of the defect processes behind second harmonic generation, nonlinear transmission and photorefractive grating formation in optical fibres