Optical fibers are typically manufactured from a preform consisting of a silica core which may be doped silica or pure silica and a cladding classically of silica having a lower refractive index than the core. An additional layer or coating/buffer is added to prevent the ingress of moisture and other contaminants which would lead to very early failure of the fiber, and preserves the initial tensile strength. These coatings/buffers are usually polymers of various types, such as Polyimide, Acrylate, Nylon, and Tefzel™. Metal coated/buffered fibers were originally developed for ultra high reliability telecommunications applications. The metal coating preserves the high initial mechanical strength and provides resistance against static fatigue (the failure under long term tensile loading). In addition to high strength, metal coated fibers can be used at very high temperatures. Tight buffered Gold coated fibers have a rated operating range of -269°C to +700°C. Gold coating can be applied on continuous lengths to a wide variety of multimode, step index, graded index, and single mode fibers. FEATURES • Extremely high break strength. • High operating temperature. • Cryogenic operating temperature. • Stress corrosion resistant. • Chemical corrosion resistant. • Radio opaque. • Hermetic (aluminum buffer). • Solderable for vacuum feedthroughs and laser diode pigtailing. • Sterilizable using ETO, steam, e-beam or gamma radiation. • Excellent thermal conductivity. • No outgassing. • No oxidation. APPLICATIONS • Rocket, turbine, and jet engine monitoring • Aircraft, missile and spacecraft sensing and measurement • Radiation resistant sensors • Ultra high vacuum devices • High temperature and cryogenic temperature sensing • Corrosive and caustic environments • Material fatigue sensing • Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) • Down-hole sensing for oil and gas industry • Allows time-resolved x-ray and optical streak camera data from laser-produced plasmas to be synchronized • Chemical analysis
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