Dear Colleagues,

Initially considered as a low loss transmission medium for long-distance telecommunications, silica glass has long been the flagship material at the core (and still vastly dominates) the fiber optic field. However, in the meantime, the emergence of other thermoplastic materials amenable to thermal drawing has fueled the development of new fiber paradigms and functionalities expanding beyond the scope of telecoms. With the deployment of non-silica glasses or advanced polymers, functional fibers, including for instance fiber lasers or infrared fibers, have emerged, gradually disseminating the technology to domains as diverse as defense and security, energy, fundamental research, medicine or industry. Today, multimaterial fibers, containing glasses and polymers but also semiconductors or metals, are routinely fabricated, with functionalities spanning sensing, flexible electronics, acoustics, and so on.

In this Special Issue, we aim at featuring advances witnessed recently in the field of specialty optical fibers. A specific focus will be given on the area of “Materials” as we believe that proposing new, advanced materials dedicated to fiber optics will be critical for maintaining and expanding even further the footprint of this important technology. The scope of the issue includes, among others, functional glasses, infrared glasses, photosensitive glasses, high-performance polymers or bio-active materials. Multimaterial fiber assemblies involving metals, alloys or crystalline semiconductors will also be considered.

Full papers, communications, and reviews are welcomed. With your contributions, we expect this Special Issue to provide an opportunity for discussing original breakthroughs, challenges, and perspectives related to innovative materials for optical fibers.

Dr. Sylvain Danto
Prof. Dr. Thierry Cardinal
Prof. Dr. Lei Wei
Prof. Dr. Marcelo Nalin
Guest Editors

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• specialty optical fibers
• advanced materials
• functional glasses
• high-performance polymers