Drawing of optical fiber with internal codrawn wire and conductive coating and electrooptic modulation demonstration

One hundred twenty meters of fiber with an internal codrawn wire and electrically conductive coating was successfully fabricated for the first time. The integration of the conductive coating and wire was all performed during the fiber draw stage, in a process that enabled arbitrarily long lengths of fiber to be made. The wire combined with the conductive coating enables a strong electric field to be formed across the optical core. Such a fiber is ideal for thermally poling long lengths and for nonlinear device applications such as optical switches and modulators.