Flexible infrared image fiber bundles (FBs) are capable of delivering thermal images of areas that are difficult for ordinary thermal cameras to access while making the imaging systems compact and lightweight. Thus, FB-based thermal imaging systems show great potential in some important applications, such as infrared endoscopy, aircraft infrared warning, and satellite remote sensing. In most applications, FBs are required to have high overall transmittance (OT) and high spatial resolution (R), but the fabrication of such high-performance FBs is still a challenge. In this work, we demonstrate a new design of flexible mid-wave infrared chalcogenide FB with high OT and decent R by optimizing the composition of glass cladding and geometric parameters of single fibers. The FB is fabricated by a modified approach combining the stack-and-draw technique and layer-stacking method, and the thermal image delivery performance of the FB is comprehensively characterized. It is shown that the core diameter (dcore) and core/cladding diameter ratio (Rcc) of single fibers can be balanced to reduce leakage of the light propagating in the single fibers while making the FB retain a reasonably high filling factor. Thus a high-performance FB can be achieved. The fabricated FB consists of 124,200 single fibers featuring an As40S60 core, an As38.9S61.1 cladding, and a polyetherimide (PEI) protective coating, with a dcore of ∼22.8 µm and an Rcc of 0.8. It has a length of ∼52 cm and a filling factor of ∼50.2%. The FB presents excellent thermal image delivery performance, including an OT of 40.5%, a single-fiber loss of 1.71 dB/m at 4.6 µm, and an R of 20.2 lp/mm, which compares favorably to previously reported FBs. These findings provide new insights for the development of high-performance thermal imaging FBs and lay a foundation for their practical applications.
Read full abstract