Collecting energy from a hot diffuse source

edge540t

Alright, let's see what ideas everyone comes up with on this question. I'm no optics guru, so I'm hoping you have better ideas than me. Here's the situation: I have a column of hot gas wherein every gas molecule emits radiation over 4π sr. At one end of the column I have a window where emitted energy can pass through to be collected. The end goal is to collect as much energy as possible from this hot gas column and focus it into a fiber optic. I have a fiber coupler that accepts collimated light and focuses it into the fiber. So, the question becomes what is the best way to collimate as much energy as possible from this diffuse source so it will go into my fiber? The coupler has some acceptance angle θ (it accepts a column + some small divergence.

berkeman

Welcome to the PF. What is the application? Is this a school project?

edge540t

This is part of the design for some experiments I need to run as part of my doctoral research. The application is inverse radiation methods. I want to collect radiation, send it to my spectrometer, then use the measured spectrum to deduce the temperature and/or mole fractions of gases in the chamber that emitted the radiation.