Enhanced Radiation Resistance of Pure-Silica-Core Polarization-Maintaining PANDA Optical Fibers

Radiation-induced absorption (RIA) is investigated at λ = 1.55 μm in technologically improved pure-silica-core (PSC) PANDAs, in which we minimized drawing-induced silica network strain. The results of the steady-state γ- and pulsed-X-ray irradiations are compared with those obtained earlier on former, non-optimized PSC PANDAs. It is found that the technological improvements have resulted in nearly complete suppression of the most deleterious RIA band at ~1 eV to drastically improve the radiation resistance of the PSC PANDAs.