What is it about?
The optical fibre illuminator is a special construction of light source. The optical fibre technology allows guiding the light using a total internal reflection phenomenon. Thanks to that, it is possible to guide the light in flexible optical fibre structure for the long distances. The light source can be therefore spatially separated from the illuminated area. Additionally, the optical fibers characteristic such as spectral attenuation, directional emission characteristic can be used for special illumination applications.
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Why is it important?
The significance of presented in the paper construction is based on white light emission which was obtained using fluorescence of dyes incorporated directly in polymeric fibre structure. This solution causes the light emission directly from the lateral optical fibre surface. In such case, the directional emission characteristic is different in comparison with typical optical fibers illuminators which emit the spotlight according to emission cone from the fibre tip. The fluorescence phenomenon causes diffused light emission which reduces glare and harsh shadows. This can be especially useful in medical observation.
Perspectives
There are two main techniques used in optical fibre lightening technology. The first one is a good quality and efficient white light generation which is considered in the presented paper. One of the main problems of organic fluorescent dyes technology is to obtain long-term stability of conversion efficiency which is critical in numerous applications. This technology is still improved by research laboratories. The second one is based on new observation techniques e.g. structural light which allows much more sophisticated analysis of illuminated objects. The 3D shape profiles and frequency domain analysis is possible then. Modern lightening technologies have high impact in new fiber-optic constructions. Moreover, the optical fibre technology advantages (small size, flexibility) can significantly expand applications fields.
Mr Piotr Miluski
Bialystok University of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Fluorescent polymeric optical fibre illuminator, Electronics Letters, September 2016, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET),
DOI: 10.1049/el.2016.1491.
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