Diffractive elements for high-power fibre coupling applications

Abstract Optical fibre delivery systems using multiple fibres can increase the amount of light delivered to a manufacturing process. By using diffractive optical elements to optimize the launch conditions, it is possible to remove any ‘hot spots’ from the input beam, maximizing the power-handling capabilities of the delivery system. We present diffractive elements to optimize the launch conditions when coupling to a fibre bundle or more than one individually mounted fibres. The maximum efficiency of these elements approaches 80% with uniformity errors of less than 10%. The effect of fabrication errors on the performance of the diffractive elements is discussed.

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