Apparatus for growing crystal fibers

Abstract

Abstract Apparatus for growing crystal fibers comprises a housing, a first drive within the housing for supporting and driving a feed rod, and a second drive within the housing for supporting and driving a fiber. Each of the drives includes a vacuum chuck having first and second support surfaces oriented generally perpendicular and defining a line of intersection, a vacuum provided along the line of intersection for retaining either a rod or a fiber in abutment with the first and second support surfaces, and roller means for driving the rod and fiber along the line of intersection. The apparatus further includes a first laser for generating a laser beam and transmission optics for transmitting the laser beam to the housing. Optics within the housing receives and expands the laser beam into a generally annular configuration and focuses the laser beam on an end of the feed rod. The optics includes a refraxicon portion having inner and outer conical reflecting surfaces for receiving a round laser beam and forming an annular laser beam, an elliptical mirror for receiving the annular laser beam from the refraxicon portion and directing the annular laser beam to a parabolic mirror which focuses the annular laser beam on the end of the feed rod. The diameter of the fiber is controlled by the speed of the first and second drives, and a control signal for the drives is obtained by a monitor which receives a laser beam transmitted through the fiber and generates signals in response to fringes of light from the fiber, the spacing of the fringes being indicative of fiber diameter.

Inventors

• 👤 Robert L. Byer
• 👤 Martin M. Fejer

Bibliographic Details