Abstract

Flexible hollow glass waveguides with bore diameters as small as 250 μm have been developed for 3-μm laser delivery. All the guides exhibit straight losses between 0.10 and 1.73 dB/m, and the loss increases to between 2.4 and 5.1 dB/m upon bending 1 m of the guides into 15-cm-diameter coils. This behavior is shown to depend strongly on the launch conditions and mode quality of the input beam. The waveguides are capable of efficiently delivering up to 8 W of Er:YAG laser power with proper input coupling, and they are suitable for use in both medical and industrial applications.

© 1996 Optical Society of America

Optical properties of small-bore hollow glass waveguides

Yuji Matsuura, Todd Abel, and James. A. Harrington
Appl. Opt. 34(30) 6842-6847 (1995)

High-peak-power, pulsed CO₂ laser light delivery by hollow glass waveguides

Jiwang Dai and James A. Harrington
Appl. Opt. 36(21) 5072-5077 (1997)

Hollow-waveguide delivery systems for high-power, industrial CO₂ lasers

Ricky K. Nubling and James A. Harrington
Appl. Opt. 35(3) 372-380 (1996)

Flexible small-bore hollow fibers with an inner polymer coating

Yukio Abe, Yi-Wei Shi, Yuji Matsuura, and Mitsunobu Miyagi
Opt. Lett. 25(3) 150-152 (2000)

Optical properties of dual-core hollow waveguides

Christopher D. Rabii and James A. Harrington
Appl. Opt. 35(31) 6249-6252 (1996)