Delivery of femtosecond pulses by flexible hollow fibers

Abstract

A flexible, hollow glass fiber is proposed as a delivery medium of femtosecond pulses. It was shown that ultrashort pulses with a pulse width of 196 fs, energy of 700 μJ, and repetition rate of 1 kHz are transmitted by the hollow fibers with no damage on the fiber. In the fiber with an inner diameter of 1 mm, the transmission loss is as low as 0.13 dB and the pulse broadening after transmission in 1 m long fiber is 17 fs. It is also shown that the numbers of transmitted modes in the fiber are estimated from the pulse broadening width.