[Prcmaker]

The ones we purchased were made in two different ways. Production ones were made by using a diffraction pattern of UV light to modify the refractive index of the core slightly, the other was using femptosecond lasers to alter it more dramatically.

The UV light method worked fine, came out to about $600US per fibre with 32 gratings each, not exactly cheap. The measurement unit was on the order of $20k US though.

[araes]

That kind of surprises me, since then I'd figure that somebody would be making the equivalent of a reprap that puts out glass filament like this 3D glass printer [1] or various glass resin methods ([2] and [3]) Just with some kind of inline laser processing, or post deposition modification. Most of those use UV or lasers anyways. The methods mentioned don't seem like those should cost $20,000/unit unless the unit's 1km+.

[1] https://www.nobula3d.com/

[2] https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2019/11/gla...

[3] https://www.glassomer.com/products/glass-3d-printing.html