fiber launched 445

[Vidal Wolf]

I was cleaning my fiber launch assembly this weekend & decided to see if I could put any reasonable amount of 445 into a fiber & get anything usefull out the other end.
after running the beam thru an achromatic prism setup to round out the beam I managed to get it into the focussing assembly and into the fiber.
I managed to get about 100 mw out with 500 mw in .
any advice for improving the output?
I used a simple ceramic wedge to nick the fiber, snapped it,checked it and mounted it in the chuck.
it was kinda cool having a blue beam coming from a fiber!

[Laserman532]

you will have to do a great deal of beam correcting to get it into a small (50u) fiber. You should have decent luck getting it into bigger (200u) fiber. Unfortunately the 445 profile is not very conducive to success. For the most part fibers like nice, round, clean, good mode beams...all of which 445 is not. But hey, you got light in and light out so.....

[Vidal Wolf]

Its a start.
I need better optics to really get the beam profile under control, until then, its just funnin around.
it was much easier with the argon!

[swamidog]

how were the characteristics of the beam exiting the fiber?

I was cleaning my fiber launch assembly this weekend & decided to see if I could put any reasonable amount of 445 into a fiber & get anything usefull out the other end.
after running the beam thru an achromatic prism setup to round out the beam I managed to get it into the focussing assembly and into the fiber.
I managed to get about 100 mw out with 500 mw in .
any advice for improving the output?
I used a simple ceramic wedge to nick the fiber, snapped it,checked it and mounted it in the chuck.
it was kinda cool having a blue beam coming from a fiber!

[Vidal Wolf]

...............uhhhhh................round?

I didnt make any measurements.
I managed to get the light that was exiting to be fairly well parallel by using a security camera zoom lens mounted to the exit end of the fiber. Being that it was a kludge setup, the light exiting , when it was shined on the wall, was granular and was shifting whenever the fiber moved or was twisted or rotated. (constructive-destructive interference).
Depending on how well it was focused at the end of the fiber & how well it was centered on the face determined what the profile of the *beam* was when it exited the aperature.
Usually it was a speckled dot, bright in the center & dimmer towards the sides. I also got a ring profile from not being quite centered.
somebody correct me if im wrong about the interference in the fiber.

[300EVIL]

Impressive results! With such a wild emitter, I'd say you did damn good.