Optical absorption in commercial single mode optical fibres for the LHC machine

The optical absorption of light at 1310 nm and 1550 nm in various commercially available Single Mode (SM) fibres samples has been studied. The absorption was measured as a function of dose, dose rate, temperature and light power. The samples were irradiated with gamma rays from a 60Co source and exposed to a complex radiation field from high energy physics. One fibre sample with an F-doped core exhibits extreme low absorption of light at 1310 nm during irradiation up to doses of at least 100 kGy.