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Lensed-taper launching coupler for small-bore, infrared hollow fibers

1997; Optica Publishing Group; Volume: 36; Issue: 30 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1364/ao.36.007818

0003-6935

Yuji Matsuura, Hajime Hiraga, You Wang, Yuji Kato, Mitsunobu Miyagi, Shin-ichi Abe, Shinji Onodera,

Photonic Crystal and Fiber Optics

A new type of launching coupler for small-bore, hollow fibers, consisting of a lens and a tapered hollow waveguide, is proposed to increase the alignment tolerance between an input laser beam and small bore fibers. First, we designed the structural dimensions of the coupler by using a ray-tracing method. Then, a series of experiments employing tapered hollow waveguides made of Pyrex glass was performed to investigate the effectiveness of the new coupler. It is shown that the coupler has a high efficiency with attenuation of around 0.5 dB, especially when the inside of the taper section is coated with a polymer and silver film. In addition, we also show that the coupler has great tolerance for the transverse displacement of a waveguide axis, which gives a 0.1-dB loss increase for a 300-µm displacement.