DIRECT EXTRUSION OF HOLLOW-CORE MICROSTRUCTURED POLYMER OPTICAL FIBER FROM 3D PRINTER.

A novel technique for the fabrication of a hollow-core antiresonant polymer optical fiber is proposed. The fiber is directly extruded and drawn from a 3D printer in a single step procedure using a nozzle with inverted micro-structure. The possibility of exploiting fibers made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) for guiding CO₂ laser (λ ~ 10.6 μm) is assessed analyzing the profile of the confinement loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]