Fabrication of silver hollow nickel waveguides with multiple inner dielectric layers by the outer-coating method

Fabrication of hollow waveguides for CO2 lasers

Germanium-coated metal (silver, gold, and copper) hollow waveguides for CO(2) laser energy delivery have been fabricated by electron-beam evaporation and plating techniques in which an acid-soluble glass mandrel with small surface roughness was used. The transmission characteristics of Ge-coated metal hollow waveguides were studied. Ge-coated Ag hollow waveguides showed smaller loss, 0.2 dBm, for CO(2) laser light than Ge-coated Au and Cu waveguides. The transmission characteristics of Ge-coated Ag hollow waveguides were measured in relation to a core diameter and a bending radius.

Broadband flexible waveguides for free-electron laser radiation

We refined flexible waveguides previously developed for CO(2) and Er:YAG laser radiation to transmit free-electron-laser (FEL) radiation. One can tune this laser over several segments of the radiation spectrum. This laser has a high peak power of as much as 10 MW with pulse energy of as much as 100 mJ. We made the waveguides of either Teflon or fused-silica tubes internally coated with metal and dielectric layers. We optimized the internal coatings specifications for transmission of various radiation wavelengths in the mid-IR range and enabled transmission of high-peak radiation. We performed experiments in three major FEL sites in the United States over a more than 1-year period when we measured and examined various characteristics of transmission. We used the analysis of these experiments as feedback to further improve these waveguides. The good preliminary results encourage us to invest more effort to further develop these waveguides until a suitable waveguide is obtained for this type of laser and make possible its introduction to the medical field where its characteristics can be exploited in surgical applications.