Fiber Optic Bundle Lenses, what can we use them for?

[Alaskan]

From time to time I see these high priced fiber optic bundles on ebay, curious if there is any application we can use them for with our lasers, anyone know?

 

[Alaskan]

Re: Fiber Optic Bundle Lenses, what can we use them for? Warning: High resolution pho

Bump, has anyone here ever played with one of these shooting the raw output from a laser into one?

 

[Isaac Clarke]

one of the experiment back in University where the professor/lecturer demonstrate TIR(also make student apply Snell's law and other laws to explain the result.....) by focus the laser into a small point with a len and then put the fiber at the focal point( where the beam converge) then connect them in a holder and bravo.... the exit beam was needle thin!!! the experiment was done with a blue laser though.(are those fiber AR coated)?

 

[RedCowboy]

Use it to combine beams and even reshape beams, it has possibilities, I don't have first hand experience with it, but I know the big laser companies do magic with the stuff.

https://fibertech-optica.com/assemblies/bundles/

I wonder about wave fronts and phase matching, still it has great possibilities, even if just bundling 7 405nm beams into a 1 surrounded by 6 in a bundle the size of 7 fibers, the divergence could be great.

But if it can actually be used to combine beams, WOW that would be awesome.

 

[Alaskan]

Thanks again, my googling didn't produce that result. +rep for your help once again! I will buy one if I can find it cheap enough and play around with it, but the one seller on ebay who has a few which look in poor shape wants a lot of money for them, too much. New, forget it, you would think they are being made from gold!

Edit: I saw your response too late FUB, so coming back to write more. Thank you for that, I was hoping it could be used to combine the output of a few laser diodes so their outputs are closer together. When I try to combine beams into a single lens (by shooting the raw output of more than one diode into it), the curvature of the lens causes the beams to shoot out quite a few degrees different, not even close to being anything like a single beam or even overlapping at all. I'm especially curious what happens to the beam when using the raw uncollimated output from a laser diode, since the output would then be expanding, whether the tubes would make the output then become parallel or not, and how that might affect divergence.

This question is off topic, but does anyone know how taking a laser pointer out of focus affects divergence? I understand the beam would then be wider and I am guessing this would cause the output to diverge at such a fast rate it would probably cause far more divergence than a fully collimated beams divergence, so maybe this is the dumbest question I have ever asked here, but what do you think?

 

[Isaac Clarke]

Edit: I saw your response too late FUB, so coming back to write more. Thank you for that, I was hoping it could be used to combine the output of a few laser diodes so their outputs are closer together. When I try to combine beams into a single lens (by shooting the raw output of more than one diode into it), the curvature of the lens causes the beams to shoot out quite a few degrees different, not even close to being anything like a single beam or even overlapping at all. I'm especially curious what happens to the beam when using the raw uncollimated output from a laser diode, since the output would then be expanding, whether the tubes would make the output then become parallel or not, and how that might affect divergence.

about combining beam using fiber, yes it possible the only problem is the fiber must be AR coated and heat-sinked. since i work in the entertainment industry,it is quiet common as the fiber give perfect output and the combination of wavelengths are perfect blends ...., also it cut the cost on assorted optics. if you need help with a project like this in the future let me know.
May be i should make a tutorial or doing an experiment to collimate/test the divergence of handheld/pointer by mounting a len and the fiber into a len barrel from DTR

 

[RedCowboy]

This is interesting.

This looks like just what we want, by adjusting the intensity of each RGB independently we can produce any color light and it looks clean.

This is off topic a little but fascinating none the less.
Fiber lasers are different from lasers transmitted over fiber, fiber lasers can reach very high power and the fiber is the gain medium, this is amazing the way material science is changing things, rather than a polished cavity C02 laser these are solid state.

So now we need to understand bragggratings, this is interesting, not something we will use, but interesting, cylindrical lenses I want to work with, soon I hope.