Know All About Fiber Collimator
It is often required
to transform light output from an optical fiber into a free-space collimated
beam. Although to carry out this task, a simple collimation lens is sufficient,
but it is necessary to fix the fiber end firmly at one end at the fixed distance
from the lens. To fix the fiber at one end, fiber collimator is used. It is
placed at the distance approximately equal to the focal length of the lens.
Fiber Collimator is a
passive device that combines the fiber and lens for collimating the light that is
coming from the fiber, or for launching collimated light into the fiber.
Features
of Fiber Collimator
· Fiber Collimator is made from a curved
mirror or Collimating lens Thorlabs.
· The light source in fiber collimator is
placed at its focus that makes divergent light into a parallel beam or couple
the parallel beam into the fiber.
·
It is available at a different
wavelength ranging from 850 nm to 1500 nm.
· It can either get attached to the bare
fiber directly or uses a mechanical interface to connect to a fiber e.g. FC or
SMA type.
For
What Fiber Collimator is used for?
A collimating lens Thorlabs in fiber is used to narrows a beam of
particle or waves. It either aligned a direction of light in a specific
direction or causes a spatial cross section of the beam to become smaller.
Generally, a fiber collimator is required to naturally transform diverging
light from an optical fiber to a parallel beam of light.
Types
of Lens Used in Fiber Collimator
Fiber Collimator can
be constructed using any type of lens like fiber lenses, ball lenses, spherical
lenses, spherical singlets and doublets, GRIN (Graded Index) lenses, microscope
objectives, cylindrical lenses. In case of thermally expanded core (TEC) fiber,
no lens is used. The material of the lens can vary from a glass to a plastic to
silicon.
The most common lens
used in the construction of fiber collimator is GRIN as it is easy to handle,
small, relatively low cost, and competitive in optical performance.
Types
of Fiber Collimator
On the basis of the
light source, fiber collimator is classified into four types:
· ! Pinhole
Collimator: It consists of the thick conical
collimator with a hole in the bottom.
·
Parallel
hole Collimator: It consists of an array of parallel
holes, perpendicular to the crystal surface.
·
Convergent
Collimator: It consists of a group of tapered
holes that focus at a point
·
Divergent
Collimator: It is an inverted converging
collimator.
Conclusion
Fiber collimator is an
effective passive optical component that is used for collimating of a laser
beam. It is very essential to select the right type of fiber collimator for the
right performance of a network. You can pick the one from the wide range of available
collimating lens Thorlabs from
Kewlab products.
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