Long-wave infrared fibers are used in an increasing number of applications ranging from thermal imaging to bio-sensing. However, the design of optical fiber with low-loss in the far-infrared requires a combination of properties including good rheological characteristics for fiber drawing and low phonon energy for wide optical transparency, which are often mutually exclusive and can only be achieved through fine materials engineering. This paper presents strategies for obtaining low loss fibers in the far-infrared based on telluride glasses. The composition of the glasses is systematically investigated to obtained fibers with minimal losses. The fiber attenuation is shown to depend strongly on extrinsic impurity but also on intrinsic charge carrier populations in these low band-gap amorphous semiconductor materials.
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