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US 8,620,121 B2Granted
Tapered fiber retroreflector
AssigneeJDS Uniphase Corporation
InventorMartin H. Muendel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An expanded-beam all-glass retroreflector for a fiber laser cavity. The retroreflector consists of a section of a tapered double-clad fiber for beam expansion, e.g. a tapered section of the laser fiber itself, or a piece of coreless fiber spliced to the laser fiber, and a reflective surface for reflection of the expanded beam back into laser cavity through the tapered fiber section.
Claims21
A fiber retroreflector comprising:
- a fiber having a diameter;
- and
- a tapered section located at an end of the fiber, having
- a core having a refractive index n0;
- a first cladding means surrounding the core, the first cladding means having a refractive index n1;
- a second cladding means surrounding the first cladding means, the second cladding means having a refractive index n2, wherein n0, n1, and n2 are such that n0>n1>n2;
- a beginning having a beginning diameter;
- an end having an end diameter;
- and
- a length therebetween,
- wherein the diameter of the tapered section gradually decreases over the length thereof, from the beginning diameter to the end diameter thereof, such that a substantially singlemode core-confined light, traveling from the beginning to the end of the tapered section, ceases to be substantially confined to the core, expands into the first cladding means, and becomes guided, while remaining substantially singlemode, by a waveguide formed by the first cladding means and the second cladding means;
- and
- wherein said tapered section has a reflective surface at the end thereof for reflecting a light back through said tapered section, so that the reflected light is coupled back into a core mode of the fiber.
10 more elements
A fiber laser resonator cavity comprising an optical fiber having an active core for light amplification, wherein said fiber has at least one double-clad tapered section at an end thereof;
- wherein a diameter of the tapered section gradually decreases over a length thereof, from a beginning to an end thereof, such that a core-confined single light mode, traveling from the beginning to the end of the tapered section, ceases to be substantially confined to a core, expands into a first cladding, and becomes guided, while remaining substantially singlemode, by a waveguide formed by first and second claddings of said double-clad tapered section of the optical fiber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.