Hydrogen induced loss effects in MCVD fibers.

Optical fibers that are exposed to trace amounts of hydrogen can experience detrimental loss increases due to (1) IR active molecular hydrogen dissolved in the fiber and (2) reaction of the H2 to form OH or other absorbing defects. In order to assure negligible loss increases over system lifetimes it is necessary to maintain P(H2)'s below some tolerance level. At low temperatures (T