Anti-Resonant Hollow Core Optical Fibres for the Vacuum-Ultraviolet

The high energy of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) photons limits their delivery by optical fibres, as common optical glasses exhibit extreme absorption loss. Anti-resonant hollow-core fibres mitigate this problem by confining the light to a hollow core. Their transmission spectra feature low-loss guidance bands between high-loss resonances at wavelengths determined by thin capillary walls [1]. Such fibres have been successful in managing the loss of silica glass in the mid-IR [2] and deep UV [3], but have yet to be demonstrated in the VUV. This is largely due to the challenge in achieving the required wall thicknesses of < 100 nm. While these may be achieved through post-processing by tapering [4] or etching [5], this is technically complex and has limited yields.