Optical transformer and collimator for efficient fiber coupling

M. Edward Motamedi; Haluk O. Sankur; Frederic M. Durville; William H. Southwell; Robert Melendes; Xiaomei Wang; Charlie X. Liu; Robert H. Rediker; Mohsen Khoshnevisan

doi:10.1117/12.271412

11 April 1997 Optical transformer and collimator for efficient fiber coupling

M. Edward Motamedi, Haluk O. Sankur, Frederic M. Durville, William H. Southwell, Robert Melendes, Xiaomei Wang, Charlie X. Liu, Robert H. Rediker, Mohsen Khoshnevisan

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 3008, Miniaturized Systems with Micro-Optics and Micromechanics II; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.271412
Event: Photonics West '97, 1997, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

Efficient coupling of high power lasers to optical fibers is desired for many applications. An example of these applications is the medical market, where coherent optical power delivered through fibers is used to perform state-of- the-art surgery. We report an efficient method for coupling optical energy from a laser-diode bar to a fiber. This method uses a single surface collimator combined with a two- surface optical transformer. An array of corrector lenses was used to assure that the output of the collimator was appropriately incident on the transformer. Optical efficiency of the collimator, after AR coating, is about 85 percent. The gratin design of the transformer is based on 4- phase level binary optics blazed grating with minimum feature size of 1.5 micrometers . Test results indicate that all the design aspects of our collimator and optical transformer are as expected, and experimental data are well within theoretical expectations. The average tested diffraction efficiency of the optical transformer is as high as 72 percent for one surface. Considering standard 0.8 micrometers process, the efficiency of the transformer for one surface can increase to > 92 percent. To our knowledge, this is the first practical demonstration of the optical transformer concept. These results demonstrate a low-cost and reliable method for efficient coupling of high power laser arrays to fibers for medical and industrial applications.

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M. Edward Motamedi, Haluk O. Sankur, Frederic M. Durville, William H. Southwell, Robert Melendes, Xiaomei Wang, Charlie X. Liu, Robert H. Rediker, and Mohsen Khoshnevisan "Optical transformer and collimator for efficient fiber coupling", Proc. SPIE 3008, Miniaturized Systems with Micro-Optics and Micromechanics II, (11 April 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.271412

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