MCVD: Its Origin and Subsequent Development

MCVD (Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition) was the second high-silica fiber process to emerge. Its inception occurred several years after exploration of fiber optics began at Bell Laboratories. Fiber design and measurement facilities were established at Holmdel and Crawford Hill while glass development proceeded at Murray Hill. This work centered on processing of traditional glass melts to make graded index multimode fiber. One day early in 1972, Bill French, along with Dave Pearson and Bill Northover, who was involved with that work, asked me how to deposit vitreous silica by CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition). At that time Paul O'Connor and I were exploring RF vapor deposition of silica film for semiconductors and we turned our attention to optical fiber.