Fiber being sold on ebay for lasers - anyone ever try it?

Has anyone here ever have a chance to couple a laser diode into some fiber without having specialized connectors for it? Found some fiber on ebay I'm interested in using to combine the output of several laser diodes into a much smaller output profile.

How much trouble is this and how? I don't think just cleaving the fiber and sticking it in front of a laser diode will work well, looking at some 808nm FAP lasers the fiber has been formed into a lens on the end.

600UM Core 1M Optical Fiber 4 1064 980 808 660 561 532 473 445 405 355nm Lasers | eBay

Without some precisely adjustable pieces of hardware made specifically for the purpose (fiber launchers), it will be a royal PITA. The way the FAP arrays can get away with it is the fiber can be attached nearly on the laser die-- since the dies are in a line, it's easy enough to put a block the exact right height in front of them to set the fiber on. Doing so with a round package diode? Well...good luck! I suppose if you were feeling adventurous you could get a m9x.5 threaded adapter with a focusing lens and a tiny hole properly spaced for the lenses focal length that the fiber could be fixed in...or better yet, something like that but would thread on the inside of a standard G lens, then you don't need a whole new lens and holder, just something with a centered hole to fit the fiber (the idea being you could simply focus the lens until it's focused on the fiber).
Few problems I could see with that:
-potential cost
-getting such a hole drilled in the exact scented would be a pain
-getting the fiber glued exactly dead center would be a pain

That's what I was afraid of, OK... unless I want to take on a major project with lots of machining or buying fiber launchers to get it right, I think I will save this idea for another day.

Thanks

you could try and use a lens to focuse the light to a point and the fibre tip is placed just at the focal point to couple the light into it , that's how laser gem 532nm systems do it ( and it was a pain to get just right ) and its alos how my 1W 808nm diodes do it and I would guess a lot of single diode systems .


00070005 by TwirlyWhirly555, on Flickr

Not the best picture but you can see the diode is first FAC corrected and then in the cylinder just at the bottom of the photo is the grin/rod lens and fibre that's then been glued in place ,

It would be a pain to do but with a lens and fibre you could get results .

Alaskan said:

Has anyone here ever have a chance to couple a laser diode into some fiber without having specialized connectors for it? Found some fiber on ebay I'm interested in using to combine the output of several laser diodes into a much smaller output profile.

How much trouble is this and how? I don't think just cleaving the fiber and sticking it in front of a laser diode will work well

Click to expand...

Yes, it's PITA without proper parts.
Coupling without a lens is very inefficient for TO packages with windows. Special mounts or holders are required to fix lenses and fibers. To couple several lasers into one fiber is more challenging. Good luck :na:

Thank you for your input guys, this is something I'm not ready to take on, too much precision for me right now.