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New Generation of Optical Fibers for High-Power Laser Delivery

With funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a joint research project between the UK's Heriot-Watt University and The University of Bath is investigating novel fiber optics for high-power applications. The novel fiber the team has developed is based on a hollow core design - meaning light is guided in air rather than glass - so that the fiber has a much higher power capacity, extended spectral transparency, 100,000 times lower nonlinearity, and near zero dispersion. Applications include next-generation surgical instrumentation, transmission of ultra-fast high-power pulses, gas detection, a portable laser cutting tool, and materials processing.

Topics:
Fiber Optics Lasers & Laser Systems Medical Optical Components Optics Photonics Power

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    Transcript

    00:00:02 [Music] using funding from the engineering and physical sciences research Council the University of b and Harriet wat University have entered a collaboration to develop a new generation of optical fibers for high power laser delivery we at the University of bath develop these fibers we do some preliminary testing and then we send

    00:00:27 them to harri atw University to be tested for the final application standard fiber uses a solid core this gives problems uh due to the optical properties of glass these problems include spectral transparency glass absorbs in the infrared nonlinearity and pulse dispersion these limit the quality of a deliverable pulse beam and power delivery too much power

    00:00:53 will simply damage the fiber conventional fibers find applications particularly in Optical Telecommunications but of course in that application it's only necessary to transmit data rather than real useful Optical power large core fibers are used in industry for example in laser Machining and Welding but the large core which is required to carry the high

    00:01:15 Powers which are needed gives rise to problems in the Precision of the delivered beam it's all very well to use these fibers if you're interested in Machining things which are on the millimeter scale but when you want to machine something really fine perhaps on the scale of microns they simply don't work and with too much power the glass melts giving more absorption and a Fus

    00:01:37 like effect as the damage propagates back to the Laser Source the novel fiber we have developed is based on holoc Core Design This Means the light is guided in air rather than glass so that the fiber has a much higher power capacity extended spectral transparency 100 100,000 times lower nonlinearity and near zero dispersion these improved properties

    00:02:14 enable us to transmit light which would have been previously impossible to deliver through Optical fibers for example in the mid infrared or with very high Optical powers and that means that we can open up applications which were previously outside of the capabilities of optical fibers one example of such an application relates to the delivery of

    00:02:36 laser power at 2.9 microns this is impossible in conventional silica fibers because silica absorbs 2.9 Micron radiation due to the presence of very small amounts of water in inside the silica but the fact that water absorbs light at 2.9 microns also makes that wavelength very valuable for surgery so we can now deliver both the wavelengths and the optical Powers which are

    00:03:05 required for surgery and that enables the potential for a new generation of unconstrained surgical instrumentation we're only just beginning to discover the full potential of these fibers they might find application in transmission of ultra fast high peak power pulses gas detection for example methane within infrared we're also considering at the

    00:03:27 moment the possibility of creating a man portable laser cutting tool or using a fiber to deliver high power light to a Machine Head where it could be used for materials processing in fact any application where one needs to deliver laser light over a very broad range of wavelengths with very high Precision would benefit from these types of fibers we've made a lot of progress in this

    00:03:52 field already and we're beginning to see the benefits of that however we think that there's a long long way to go and we're really just only beginning to find out what might be possible and we're hoping that we will be able to produce Optical fibers which have far lower attenuation than any which have been previously reported currently the most important laser wavelengths are around

    00:04:13 one micron what's rarely required is to produce similar kinds of light at very short wavelengths perhaps into the ultraviolet that will enable a host of new applications including for example processing of silicon chips in semiconductor fabrication facilities which which would enable us to proceed to a new generation of far cheaper and better computer

    00:04:36 [Music] chips epsrc sponsored research at bath and herit wat continues to advance applications in photonics for more information on applications in your industrial area for PhD positions or to see our other research please get in touch [Music]