Film-to-fiber fabrication of anti-resonant fibers for high-performance terahertz wave transmission

• An efficient processing solution was proposed for the continuous fabrication of THz ARFs with innovations in fiber material and fabrication method. The proposed method has the capability to fabricate the ARF with a core diameter smaller than 1 mm and a wall thickness of cladding tube less than 10 µm. • The proposed ARF fabrication scheme utilized the thickness-controllable films as raw materials. The result ARFs exhibited advantages such as controllable wall thickness, flexibility, and compact size, thereby facilitating low-loss and broadband transmission of THz waves. • An ARF with core diameter of 4 mm and cladding tube thickness of 70 μm was numerically and experimentally investigated and a 3-m ARF sample was has been easily realized. Measured with cutback method, the ARF showed a transmission loss of 0.4 dB/m at 1 THz and 0.27 dB/m at 2.52 THz. To the best of my knowledge, the fiber presented in this paper has the lowest transmission loss among the THz fiber ever reported to date. Anti-resonant fibers (ARFs) are regarded as promising waveguides for high-performance terahertz (THz) wave propagation, yet their fabrication remains a critical challenge. This work proposes an efficient processing solution for the continuous fabrication of THz ARFs based on the method of “film-to-fiber”. A thin-film-based ARF structure with a 4-mm core diameter and a 70-μm cladding thickness was proposed and continuously fabricated. A 3-m fiber sample was successfully fabricated, with low transmission loss of 0.4 dB/m at 1 THz and 0.27 dB/m at 2.52 THz. The proposed fabrication method offers a highly feasible solution for the large-scale production of high-quality THz optical fibers.