Delivery of high peak power laser light through photonic bandgap fibres

Author

Hand, Duncan P. ; Shephard, J.D. ; Jones, J.D.C. ; Knight, Jonathan C. ; Russell, P.S.J.

Author_Institution

Appl. Opt. & Photonics Group, Heriot-Watt Univ., Edinburgh, UK

Volume

2

fYear

2004

fDate

4-8 July 2004

Firstpage

103

Abstract

High peak power laser light is used in a wide range of applications, including precision machining of a range of materials and measurement of high speed gas flows. Previously, fibre optic delivery for such applications has only been possible using either large core multimode step-index fibres, or hollow waveguide fibres based on Fresnel reflections; in each case, low beam quality is produced. The high damage thresholds which have been demonstrated with photonic bandgap fibres provide an alternative solution, delivering a very high quality beam. Results obtained with such fibres are presented, with reference to machining and flow measurement applications.

Keywords

flow measurement; laser beam machining; measurement by laser beam; optical fibres; photonic band gap; Fresnel reflections; damage thresholds; high peak power laser beam delivery; high speed gas flow measurement; hollow waveguide fibres; laser machining; multimode step-index fibres; photonic bandgap fibres; Fiber lasers; Gas lasers; Machining; Optical materials; Optical waveguides; Photonic bandgap fibers; Power lasers; Power measurement; Velocity measurement; Waveguide lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Transparent Optical Networks, 2004. Proceedings of 2004 6th International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8343-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICTON.2004.1361978

Filename

1361978