Fiber Optomechanics
- Beam Splitters and Combiners
- Collimators
- Fiber Adapters
- Fiber Bragg Grating
- Fiber Optic Couplers
- Fiber Mirrors
- Fiber Optic Attenuators
- Fiber Patch Cords
- Fiber Probes
- Power Shutter and Safety Interlock
- Fiber Tunable Filters
- Fiber Optic Gyroscopes
- Transmitters and Receivers
- Fiber Alignment Structures
- Fiber Coils
- Splice Protector Sleeves
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Collimators
Frequently Asked Questions
A fiber collimator contains an objective lens that can focus the beam to a small spot or expand it. When the source is placed at the focal point of the lens, the lens will increase the diameter of the beam and the rays will come out parallel. On the other hand, if the incoming beam is already collimated, then the lens will focus it at the focal point.
Numerical aperture is a parameter related to the acceptance angle of a lens or a fiber. This angle is defined as the largest angle a lens, or a fiber can collect. This means that rays coming in at an angle larger than this angle will be clipped and will not couple into the fiber or be imaged by a lens. Numerical aperture is an important parameter in fiber collimators as it indicates how much a beam can be expanded and how much light gets collected.
Fiber collimators are generally comprised of an objective lens fused together with an optical fiber near its facet. Typically, this lens is a few millimeters in diameter or less. The fusion of the lens and the fiber eliminates air gaps and does not require the gluing using epoxies which makes it ideal for handling high power beams.
Divergence is a measure of how fast the diameter of a circular beam or ray of fans increases as we move out of the system. For Gaussian beam such as lasers, it is an angle defined as a function of wavelength and beam waist. Ideally, a perfectly collimated source would have a 0-divergence angle. However, even the best-collimated sources such as lasers still have some degree of divergence on the order of a few milliradians.
In addition to collimating rays of light, collimators can also serve as a positive lens that focuses the light emitted by a laser to a smaller spot that can be coupled into an optical fiber. Collimators can also realize coupling between 2 fibers and they provide control over the diameter of the beam. Using a collimator, one can make a beam expand a beam or focus it tightly.
Fiber collimators are often used as couplers that couple laser light into small optical fibers. They are widely for illumination by expanding the output beam of the fiber or for testing and inspection.
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