| With a superior transmittance in the mid-infrared, fluoride fibers such as ZBLAN fibers can be used to develop fiber-based components for that spectrum. In this thesis, we investigate the fusion splicing of ZBLAN fibers as well as the fabrication of long-period gratings and Mach-Zehnder interferometer structures. Average losses in the range of 0.23-0.31 dB are achieved for the fusion splicing among multi-mode and single-mode ZBLAN fibers. In the C- and O-bands, notches of depths ranging from 6-17 dB are obtained with mechanically induced long-periog gratings. All-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers are also demonstrated by cascading the long-period gratings. An equation used to calculate the relation between the fringe spacing and the separation length shows that the smallest and the largest difference compared to the measurements are 1.81% and 7.37%, respectively. |
