Optical fiber

Nivanio

Hi, i have a question about optical fiber and co2 laser

Can a co2 laser be cabled with optical fiber?
Wavelength of 10 micron

mgb_phys

yes, that's how most industria lCO2 lasers work. The laser itself is somewhere safe, mecahnically stable and with lots of cooling. A fibre carries the laser power to the cutting head. Often they even have a separate small visible laser fibre wrapped around the main bundle - if there is any fault in the power bundle and the beam leaks out it quickly burns through the optical fibre which is detected and the laser shuts down.

Fibres are also used to bring the power from several lasers heads to one point, although this is more common with diode lasers.

dlgoff

I believe that this is how they are trying to focus enough energy to get fussion?

mgb_phys

Probably not with fibres. They wouldn;t handle the power level sfor interially confined fusion and effects like dispersion would be a problem for the crititcal timing needed.
In a fusion experiment you have lots of space to build miles of lasers and beam lines on fixed optical tables so there is no need to use fibres.

Nivanio

Hmm, i think they use lenses and mirrors, and not optical fibers, or maybe a different kind of fiber...

las3rjock

Or, in the case of the National Ignition Facility, you build miles of lasers and beam lines in a fixed ten-story optical warehouse: https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nif/