Hollow core fibers have generated a tremendous interest within the optical fiber research community, during the last 20 years. The natural evolution of both design concepts and fabrication approaches have risen this research technology to the level of starting to hit the market of high power beam delivery, data communications and gas laser sources. We will review the historical path and the characteristics of the last generation of hollow core optical fibers, and discuss why and how we may expect further advances to come.

Walter Belardi is a senior research fellow at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), University of Southampton (United Kingdom). He was awarded his Laurea degree in Electronics Engineering at the Università degli Studi di Pavia (Italy) and his PhD degree in Optoelectronics at the ORC. His principal research contributions are in the numerical design, fabrication and applications of novel optical fibre technologies. He has co-authored more than 80 scientific publications and 2 patents. His most important recent achievements include the demonstration of the very first low loss hollow optical fibres in common low quality and cheap borosilicate glass.