Fabrication of antimony oxide-doped silica fibres by the VAD process

Antimony oxide-doped silica fibres were fabricated by the VAD process. To fabricate the low-loss and low-OH content fibres, the presintering technique was developed for the dehydration and consolidation process. As a result, the minimum loss value and the residual OH ion content were 7.0 dB/km at 1.65 μm and 50 parts in 109 respectively.