Fibre-optical communications. Final report on Ministry of Technology Contract PD/40/049/AT

The work described in this final report has been carried out under the terms of Contract PD/40/049/AT from May 1968 to September 1970. It formed part of a programme to develop a restricted-bandwidth, optical communications link using glass fibres, carried out jointly with S.R.D.E., Christchurch. The parts of the programme assigned to the Quantum Electronics Research Group in the Department of Electronics, University of Southampton, were as follows:a) Measurement of optical absorption and scattering losses in high-purity bulk glass; b) Development of equipment for pulling suitable cladded glass fibres from bulk glass;c) Assessment of the quality of fibres so produced.The necessary apparatus for the measurements in (a) has been designed and built, and measurements have been made and are still in progress. Fibre-drawing equipment has been designed and built, and fibres produced and assessed; meanwhile, modifications to the drawing apparatus are being made in the light of the quality of the initially-produced fibres. Some theoretical work on mode propagation in fibres was carried out in the early stages of the Contract, and is described in the first report on the Contract and elsewhere [1]