Hollow Plastic waveguides for Sensor Applications

摘要

Leaky-type waveguides were fabricated using flexible hollow polymer tubing of bore sizes in the 840 to 3000 mum range. The tubing used included polycarbonate, polyetherether ketone (PEEK), butyrate and polyimide. The losses for hte 2000 mum bore hollow polycarbonate waveguide were as low a 0.055 dB/m at 10.6 mum. This is the lowest loss ever measured for a hollow waveguide. These waveguides exhibit a nearly flat spectral response from 3 to 16 mum, so that they are well suited for broadband IR applications. The output beam profile for hte small bore (840 mum) waveguides is mainly single mode but, higher order modes propagate for the larger bore sizes. Bending the waveguides resulted in a highly multimode output for all the bore sizes.