Damage characteristics of silica fibers and hollow fibers

Power delivery characteristics of fibers for high power density pulse laser makes it difficult to apply laser-driven miniflyer system into practice. In order to investigate the power delivery characteristics of fibers, an optical fiber fixture was designed in the experimental set up, which was useful to alignment of the laser beam. The transmission efficiency and damage threshold of high-peak power density laser pulses with width of 6ns and wavelength of 1 064 nm via both silica fiber and AgI/Ag hollow fibers with core diameter of 600 m are demonstrated. It is found that, within 10 mm from the focal, the average transmission efficiency of the silica fiber is 76.2%, which were 61.8% of the hollow fiber. 2 mm before the focal, the damage threshold of silica fiber and AgI/Ag hollow fiber are 22.3 mJ and 29.4 mJ. By comparing the results that, AgI/Ag hollow fiber has a higher damage threshold, its transmission efficiency is about 15% lower than the silica fiber, its engineering potential still needs to be further developed.