Guiding optical light in air using an all-dielectric structure

Abstract

The emergence of a dielectric omnidirectional multilayer structure opens new opportunities for low loss broad-band guiding of light in air. We demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach by fabricating a broad-band, low-loss hollow waveguide in the 10-/spl mu/m region and measuring its transmission around a 300 bend. The generality of the solution enables the application of the method to many wavelengths of interest important in telecommunication applications as well as for guiding high-power lasers in medical and other fields of use.