Development of heat resistant UV transmission optical fibers (2)

摘要

Recently1 Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) light, ex. excimer laser, is used for the semiconductor process. When usual optical fibers for ultra violet region are exposed to DUV light, many defects are induced in the core glass, and transmission loss are increased by these defects. Therefore, these optical fibers cannot be used for the DUV region. We have developed the excellent DUV transmission and high heat resisting silica core optical fibers by developing a new hydrogen doping technique into aluminum coated optical fibers. The technique keeps high DUV transmission over an extended period of time. In this paper we describe the mechanism of transmission loss of the optical fibers by DUV irradiation, improvement of DUV resistance by hydrogen, and effect of the heat-treatment to the newly developed optical fiber.