Fiber optic dye amplifier

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Brief Description of the Drawings FIG.
1 is a drawing of the amplifier system of the invention.
FIG.
2 is a cross sectional view of the fiber 20 taken along the view line 2--2 in FIG.
1.
FIG.
3 is a perspective view of the fiber holder of the amplifier.
FIG.
4 is a graph of oil drop test results to determine the proper amount of cladding to remove.
FIG.
5 shows the effect of polishing into the core upon transmission losses.
FIG.
6 illustrates the wavelength dependence of the penetration of the evanescent field into the cladding.
FIG.
7 illustrates some of the chemical structures for dyes that are suitable for lasing and light amplification.
FIG.
8 illustrates the energy levels of a typical molecule of dye such as is shown in FIG.
7.
FIGS.
9 (a)-(c) illustrates the processes of absorption, spontaneous emission and stimulated emission occurring during changes in quantization levels.
FIG.
10 illustrates the mechanism of amplification by stimulated emission.
FIG.
11 shows the absorption and emission curves for a typical lasing dye such as Rhodamine 6G.
FIG.
12 illustrates the actual absorption curve for the Rhodamine 610 dye used in the preferred embodiment when placed on the fiber surface 72.
FIG.
13 illustrates the sensitivity of absorption of energy by the dye as a function of dye index of refraction and wavelength.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG.
1 there is shown a drawing of the preferred embodiment of the invention and the dye amplifier itself.
A monomode fiber optic waveguide 20 is mechanically affixed to a fiber holder 22.
The purpose of the fiber holder 22 is to mechanically secure the fiber 20 and to expose a portion of the cladding of the fiber 20 for removal by polishing of the surface 26.
In the preferred embodiment, the fiber holder 22 is one-half of a directional coupler the structure of which is well known in the art.
Briefly, the structure is a quartz block having a groove formed therein of the approximate dimensions of the diameter of fiber 20