Evolutive Optical Fibers Combining Oxide and Chalcogenide Glasses with Submicronic Polymer Structures

Multimaterial optical fibers combining tellurite with chalcogenide glasses and featuring thin polymer structures are fabricated via the thermal drawing process. It is demonstrated that micrometric polyethersulfone films can be embedded within larger elongated tellurite/chalcogenide glass architectures. Taking advantage of the strong chemical reactivity contrasts which exist in the considered fiber geometries, a quasi-exposed-core waveguide is obtained by selective etching of the glass cladding. The potential of the postprocessed fiber structure is then assessed through evanescent-wave probing of liquids and numerical investigations are carried out to establish the device performances as function of selected optogeometric parameters. Those results open the way for the development of evolutive photonic objects benefiting from postdrawing processing of multimaterial fibers.