Waveguides having patterned, flattened modes

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9170367-B2
Application number	US-201313804252-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 14, 2013
Priority date	Jun 16, 2011
Publication date	Oct 27, 2015
Grant date	Oct 27, 2015

Abstract

Field-flattening strands may be added to and arbitrarily positioned within a field-flattening shell to create a waveguide that supports a patterned, flattened mode. Patterning does not alter the effective index or flattened nature of the mode, but does alter the characteristics of other modes. Compared to a telecom fiber, a hexagonal pattern of strands allows for a three-fold increase in the flattened mode's area without reducing the separation between its effective index and that of its bend-coupled mode. Hexagonal strand and shell elements prove to be a reasonable approximation, and, thus, to be of practical benefit vis-à-vis fabrication, to those of circular cross section. Patterned flattened modes offer a new and valuable path to power scaling.

First claim

We claim:

1. A waveguide that propagates a field-flattened preferred mode, said waveguide comprising:
one or more strands, a shell that surrounds all of said one or more strands, and a cladding that surrounds said shell;
wherein said shell comprises a shell refractive index structure configured to induce the field of said preferred mode to have a gradient of zero or nearly zero along the interior perimeter of said shell refractive index structure and to decay with increasing dis…

Assignees

• L Livermore Nat Security Llc

Inventors

• Messerly Michael J
• Pax Paul H
• Dawson Jay W

Classifications

• G02B6/02042

  Physics · mapped topic

• G02B6/02

  Physics · mapped topic

• G02B6/0008

  Physics · mapped topic

• H01S3/06741

  Electricity · mapped topic

• C03B37/01211

  Chemistry & Metallurgy · mapped topic