Suspended nanowires: Fabrication, design and characterization of fibers with nanoscale cores

We report a new approach for the fabrication of nanowires: the direct drawing of optical fibers with air suspended nanoscale cores. The fibers were made from lead silicate glass using the extrusion technique for preform and jacket tube fabrication. Fibers with core diameters in the range of 420-720 nm and practical outer diameters of 110-200 mu m were produced, the smallest core sizes produced to date within optical fibers without tapering. We explored the impact of the core size on the effective mode area and propagation loss of these suspended nanowires relative to circular nanowires reported to date. As for circular nanowires, the propagation loss of these suspended nanowires is dominated by surface roughness induced scattering. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America