Origin of the visible absorption in radiation-resistant optical fibers

A. Morana (1) , Marco Cannas (2) , Sylvain Girard (1) , Aziz Boukenter (1) , L. Vaccaro (2) , J. Perisse (3) , Jean-Reynald Macé (4) , Youcef Ouerdane (1) , R. Boscaino (2)

1 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien
2 Università degli studi di Palermo - University of Palermo
3 AREVA NP
4 AREVA

In this work we investigated the point defects at the origin of the degradation of radiation-tolerant optical fibers used in the visible part of the spectrum for plasma diagnostics in radiation environments. For this aim, the effects of γ-ray irradiation up to the dose of 10 MGy(SiO2) and post-irradiation thermal annealing at 550°C were studied for a Fluorine-doped fiber. An absorption peaking around 2 eV is mainly responsible for the measured radiation-induced losses, its origin being currently debated in the literature. On the basis of the unchanging shape of this band with the radiation dose, its correlation with the 1.9 eV photoluminescent band and the thermal treatment results we assign the asymmetric absorption around 2 eV to an unique defect, the NBOHC, instead of a set of various defects.

Domains: Optics / Photonic

A. Morana, Marco Cannas, Sylvain Girard, Aziz Boukenter, L. Vaccaro, et al.. Origin of the visible absorption in radiation-resistant optical fibers. Optical Materials Express, 2013, 3 (10), pp.1769-1776. ⟨10.1364/OME.3.001769⟩. ⟨ujm-00871142⟩