Controllable acid stripping system for bare fiber with high tensile strength

摘要

Bare fiber is the base for fabricating many functional fiber devices showing broad applications in both fiber-opticcommunication and sensing. However, the conventional mechanic stripping method to remove fiber coating deteriorateinevitably fiber tensile strength. Alternately, an acid stripping technique has been introduced to keep the original tensilestrength. But the traditional acid stripping coating system usually use a large amount of concentrated sulfuric acid withtime-consuming rinsing process, and it is difficult to control the solution temperature and the stripped length of the fiber. Inthis work, we have proposed and demonstrated a system by exploring a T-shaped glass tube associated with an alcohollamp to control the acid stripping process. By dropping a small amount of concentrated sulfuric acid (>95wt%H_2SO_4) inthe T-shaped glass tube heated by the lamp, the length of bare fiber length can be controlled. The tensile strength of suchbare fiber has been further studied, proving that our method can keep the original tensile strength. The obtained bare fiberwith high tensile strength shows potential application in functional fiber devices together with special micromachining orcoating techniques.