Optical fiber for harsh environments presents unique design challenges, particularly in coatings required to maintain the properties of the fiber. In a typical harsh environment application, the optical fibers are exposed to water, hydrogen or 3 harmful chemicals at elevated temperatures, e.g. > 200°C. The fibers are commonly coated with a thin layer of carbon and further coated with thermosetting polyimide materials that can withstand significantly higher temperature than the common UV cured acrylate coatings. In this paper, we describe our recent efforts in understanding the impact of the environment on the fiber performance and report the advances in improving fiber and coating design to minimize the impact. Along with the discussion of the familiar fiber failure mechanisms, we also show the existence of a unique failure mechanism, i. e. the degradation of coating properties that leads to optical transmission loss.|Optical fiber for harsh environments presents unique design challenges, particularly in coatings required to maintain the properties of the fiber. In a typical harsh environment application, the optical fibers are exposed to water, hydrogen or 3 harmful chemicals at elevated temperatures, e.g. > 200°C. The fibers are commonly coated with a thin layer of carbon and further coated with thermosetting polyimide materials that can withstand significantly higher temperature than the common UV cured acrylate coatings. In this paper, we describe our recent efforts in understanding the impact of the environment on the fiber performance and report the advances in improving fiber and coating design to minimize the impact. Along with the discussion of the familiar fiber failure mechanisms, we also show the existence of a unique failure mechanism, i. e. the degradation of coating properties that leads to optical transmission loss.

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