High Strength Hollow Fiber for IR Optic Applications

In general, hollow waveguides are an attractive alternative to conventional solid-core IR fibers for laser power delivery because of the inherent advantage of their air core. Hollow waveguides not only enjoy the advantage of high laser power thresholds but also low insertion loss, no end reflection, ruggedness, and small bean divergence. They are today one of the best alternatives for power delivery in IR laser and industrial laser delivery systems with losses as low as 0.1 dB/m and transmitted cw laser powers as high as 2.7 kW. This program proposes a ultra high strength hollow fiber that is about 10 time higher than silica fiber. The higher strength fiber can have several advantages including longer length, less fragile, smaller diameter, etc. The low cost processing also makes this material very attractive to the IR applications.