<title>Reimaging and concentrating CO<formula><inf><roman>2</roman></inf></formula> laser beam from Fiberlase: a high-efficiency flexible hollow waveguide</title>

Abstract

The minimum spot size from our current production of the Fiberlase is 0.8 mm at the waveguide tip and is suitable for many laser material applications. For some advanced medical and industrial applications, a very small spot size and high power density is required. A smaller laser spot size can be achieved by reducing the waveguide ID, however a tremendous amount of laser power will be lost as the guide diameter is reduced. In addition, it is increasingly difficult to couple a carbon-dioxide laser beam into ever smaller diameter waveguide. In order to concentrate carbon-dioxide laser light down to 0.3 mm or less, our first design approach is reimaging the laser spot from the waveguide with a single or double lens system. The other approach is by using a nonimaging conical waveguide taper to concentrate the carbon-dioxide laser light. The performance of these approaches is discussed in terms of the spot size, beam quality and power transmission.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.