Corning Launches Double Clad Specialty Fiber; Industry leading all-glass composition for high power fiber lasers.

Business Editors

OFC 2004

CORNING, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2004

Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), the industry leader in specialty fiber, today announced the introduction of a ytterbium-doped double clad fiber with all-glass cladding enabling output power in excess of 100 Watts. This newest addition to Corning's broad specialty fiber portfolio captures emerging technology trends in the growing fiber laser market and is targeted for defense, commercial materials processing, marking lasers and other high power laser applications. This development was supported in part by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the High Power Fiber Lasers Program.

Corning's ytterbium-doped fibers are manufactured by a proprietary Outside Vapor Deposition (OVD) process using an all-glass cladding composition that provides superior consistency and the industry's lowest passive loss in the core and inner clad regions. Available in single-mode, multimode and large-mode-area (LMA) profiles, Corning's double clad fibers achieve 78% slope efficiencies.

"Our all-glass cladding provides a significant performance advantage versus today's polymer claddings" explained Corning Specialty Fiber Product Manager, Siska Boddez. "Polymers tend to degrade over time, while Corning's glass composition is a power-scalable fiber design optimized for long term reliability. In addition to double clad fiber, Corning has single polarization fibers in the pipeline that will enable next generation high power fiber lasers, fiber optic gyroscopes and new telecom applications where one seeks to avoid polarization instabilities."

Ytterbium double clad fiber is part of Corning's broad and growing specialty fiber portfolio, which includes polarization maintaining, high index, erbium, and reduced clad fibers for telecommunications and non-telecommunications markets.

Corning's Photonic Materials product portfolio, including specialty fibers, polarizing glass, GRIN lenses, lensed fiber and other specialty materials, will be on exhibit during the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) conference February 24-26 in Los Angeles, California. For more information, visit the Corning booth (#3227) during the show or Corning's website at www.corning.com/photonicmaterials.

About Corning Incorporated

Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) is a diversified technology company that concentrates its efforts on high-impact growth opportunities. Corning combines its expertise in specialty glass, ceramic materials, polymers and the manipulation of the properties of light, with strong process and manufacturing capabilities to develop, engineer and commercialize significant innovative products for the telecommunications, flat panel display, environmental, semiconductor, and life sciences industries.