Laser diode to fiber reflective coupling

A combination comprising:

• a spherical mirror having a one to one imaging plane,
• a semiconductor laser diode having an emission facet located closer to said mirror than said one to one imaging plane, and
• an optical fiber having an entrance face located further from said mirror than said one to one imaging plane,
• wherein said mirror is positioned to couple radiation from said emission facet of said laser diode into said entrance face of said fiber, and
• wherein said laser diode is mounted on a first submount and said fiber is mounted on a second submount, and said first submount and said second submount are mounted on a common submount.

A combination comprising

• a laser diode,
• a first submount for said laser diode,
• an optical fiber,
• a second submount for said optical fiber, said first and second submounts being rigidly positioned relative to one another to fix the position of an emission facet of the laser diode relative to a tip of the fiber, and
• a spherical reflecting surface positioned for coupling radiation from said laser diode into said fiber.

A combination comprising:

• a first waveguide having a first numerical aperture,
• a second waveguide having a second numerical aperture substantially different from said first numerical aperture, and
• a spherical mirror for coupling radiation from said first waveguide into said second waveguide, said spherical mirror having a one to one imaging plane,
• said first waveguide having a radiation transmitting surface located closer to said spherical mirror than said one to one imaging plane and said second waveguide having a radiation transmitting surface located further from said mirror than said one to one imaging plane to compensate for the difference in numerical apertures between said first and second waveguides.

The combination of claim 10 wherein:

• said first waveguide has a longitudinal axis,
• said second waveguide has a longitudinal axis, and
• said mirror has an optical axis which passes through a vertex of said mirror,
• the longitudinal axis of said first and second waveguides being oriented to intersect the vertex of said mirror.

A combination comprising

• a semiconductor light emitting device having a numerical aperture,
• an optical fiber having a numerical aperture substantially smaller than the numerical aperture of said light emitting device, and
• a spherical mirror for coupling radiation from said light emitting device into said optical fiber, said spherical mirror having a one to one imaging plane,
• wherein an emission facet of said light emitting device is located closer to said mirror than said one to one imaging plane and an entrance surface of said fiber is located further from said mirror than said one to one imaging plane to compensate for the difference between said numerical apertures.

A combination comprising:

• a first optical waveguide,
• a first submount for said first waveguide,
• a second optical waveguide,
• a second submount for said second waveguide,
• said first and second submounts being rigidly positioned relative to one another to fix the position of a light transmitting surface of the first waveguide relative to a light transmitting surface of the second waveguide, and
• a spherical reflecting surface positioned to couple light from the transmitting surface of one of said waveguides to the transmitting surface of the other of said waveguides.