Professor Yasutake Ohishi is a world-renowned scientist for his contribution to develop the novel manufacture technology and expand the application of non-silica-based optical fibers. He focused on studying infrared glasses and optical fibers since 1980. He established infrared optical fiber fabrication technology using non-silica glasses to demonstrate ultrabroadband supercontinuum generation and broadband fiber optical parametric amplification for optical fiber amplifiers, fiber lasers and nonlinear fiber optics applications. Furthermore, he commercialized proseodymiun- and erbium-doped fluoride optical fiber amplifier to be installed in the optical network systems of Nippon Telephone and Telegram Corporation. Additionally, he published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and have about 200 patents. Now he is the vice president of Toyota Technological Institute and fellow of Optical Society of America and Society of Glass Technology.

Soft glass optical fibers exhibit optical properties such as high nonlinearity and mid-infrared transmission that are unavailable in standard silica fibers, making them significant for applications in mid-infrared lasers and nonlinear optics. However, soft glass materials have characteristics like low viscosity and a tendency to crystallize, making them difficult to fabricate into microstructured fibers. Using our self-developed fiber fabrication technology, we have prepared various soft glass microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) with controlled dispersion and nonlinearity. Based on these self-developed MOFs, we have explored new mid-infrared fiber laser technologies and discussed their potential future applications.