Optical measurements of plastic (polyimide) hollow waveguides for IR radiation

Nathan I. Croitoru; Alexandra Inberg; Mark Oksman; M. Ben-David

doi:10.1117/12.301116

1 January 1998 Optical measurements of plastic (polyimide) hollow waveguides for IR radiation

Nathan I. Croitoru, Alexandra Inberg, Mark Oksman, M. Ben-David

Proceedings Volume 3199, Biomedical Systems and Technologies II; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.301116
Event: BiOS Europe '97, 1997, San Remo, Italy

Abstract

Hollow waveguides for infrared radiation are suitable for high power radiation and large interval of wavelengths. This has enabled to begin its preparation for several practical applications in medicine which are already investigated. One of the types of these waveguides is made from plastic (teflon) tubes and several papers were published in this field. Although the Teflon waveguides have several important advantages (high flexibility and biological suitability) for application in medicine, there are also difficulties in achieving low attenuation (low radiation losses), of the transmitted radiation, which is limiting their applications. One of the main reasons of the large losses of the transmitted radiation through these waveguides is the relative large roughness of the internal wall of the tubes which produce scattering of the incident radiation. Several attempts to reduce the roughness have given only a limited improvement since the internal wall of the Teflon tube is not easy to polish (the needed average roughness is less than 10 nm). In previous papers we have reported first results obtained in developing a new type of hollow waveguide for infrared made from polyimide which is a type of plastic with high melting temperature and which can be prepared with very flat surface roughness, less than 10 nm. In this paper we shall present new results of a study made for developing this type of plastic hollow waveguide. The attenuation was reduced to values less than 1 dB. Data about the process of etching for decreasing the roughness of the internal wall of polyimide tube and new methods of deposition of high adhesive and minimal roughness of the Ag and AgI guiding layers will be presented. Results of measurements of attenuation as a function of bending radius, coupled power and time of transmitted radiation will be shown and discussed. New type of dependence of attenuation on bending due to the mechanical properties of the polyimide tubes will be shown and discussed.

Citation Download Citation

Nathan I. Croitoru, Alexandra Inberg, Mark Oksman, and M. Ben-David "Optical measurements of plastic (polyimide) hollow waveguides for IR radiation", Proc. SPIE 3199, Biomedical Systems and Technologies II, (1 January 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.301116

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