Modeling of Heat and Mass Transfer in the Manufacture of Optical Waveguides

Due to the increased use of optical waveguide in the communications industry, there is an ever increasing need for the high quality production and controlled deposition of doped silica particles. However, the complex coupling of heat and mass transfer processes during fabrication precluded the empirical approach to either the refinement of current processes or the development of new ones. Current fabrication techniques fall into two categories: inside and outside processes. Inside processes require an externally heated rotating substrate tube in which germania-doped silica particles, from such precursors as SiCl sub 4 and GeCl sub 4 delivered in O sub 2, deposit on the tube walls.