I do not understand the novelty of this approach. I do not disagree that it works, but how is this different than a FAC diode?............
Price and availability
Using a fiber laterally as a small, cylinder shaped lens to FAC a diode output is interesting, but remember that these fibers are not AR coated on the surface that is designed to retain light by total internal reflection. That is a loss of 4-5%/surface times two surfaces. ............
Correct as usual, but as you point out, some empirical results would be quite interesting, ....... tricky bit would be positioning & fixing.
The output from a multimode diode at any wavelength is a cluster of ray paths that is usually pretty symmetrical in each axis ie l ll l, but it is not a smooth and continuous transition like the Gaussian spread of a single mode beam. Trying to get the smallest focus which is the same as achieving the lowest divergence requires a complex lens shape. Even the main stripe is not the same as the single mode spot and has structure.
Correct again as usual, but this is what makes FACs so horribly expensive !
It should not matter what scale of the correction lens and spacing that you use, ie a 20mm lens at 10mm from the diode or 100um at 50um from the diode, the result should be the same. The rays will follow straight paths to each lens surface and the correction should be scale invariant. The larger lens will be less expensive and much easier to position. The divergence will be the same and so even if the FAC diode's small spot would seem to allow tighter knife edging (more beams/mm^2) the divergence will be proportionally higher and the far field brightness will be the same.