From the data in Table 2 we see that the glasses have low softening temperatures more comparable to fluoride glass than the oxide glasses. They are very stable, durable, and insensitive to moisture. A distinctive difference between these glasses and the other IR fiber glasses is that they do not transmit well in the visible region and their refractive indices are quite high. In general, chalcogenide glass fibers have proven to be an excellent candidate for evanescent wave fiber sensors and for IR fiber image bundles. For the core-only preform draw either a soft chalcogenide cladding can be extruded over the fiber as it is drawn or the preform can be Teflon clad.
Crucible drawing is also possible.
As 2 S 3 and an AsGeSeTe fiber. Note the many impurity bands pervasive in these fiber systems. The losses for the most important chalcogenide fibers are given in Fig. 4. 17 Longer wavelengths are transmitted through the addition of heavier elements like Te, Ge, and Se as shown in the figure. A key feature of essentially all chalcogenide glasses is the strong extrinsic absorption resulting from contaminants such as hydrogen, H 2 O, and OH - bonding to the elemental cations.