LASER COMPONENTS supply a very wide range of optical fibres for a number of standard and individual custom applications. In this article we focus on our sapphire fibre, which is manufactured according to the Edge-Defined-Film-Technique (EFG), yielding high volume and cost effective optical fibres. Sapphire fibre has a crystalline structure and features all the excellent properties of the sapphire crystal and can transmit over a wide range of wavelengths, ranging from 750 nm to 3500 nm, and is available in 250 µm, 350 µm and 450 µm diameters.
Sapphire fibre has a high melting point of over 2000°C, is very durable and inert, therefore can be used in high temperature sensing applications and in sampling optical signals in harsh environments. The optical, chemical, mechanical and nuclear properties make it ideal for many industrial applications, e.g. inserting into combustion cylinders or turbine engines to monitor fuel constituents, contaminants and combustion chemistry, allowing the control of fuel mixture, flow and timing with the optical signal being fed outside for spectral analysis.
Sapphire fibre can be used in fluorine plasmas, used in semiconductor processing, and is well suited for 2940 nm Er.YAG lasers, therefore very useful for certain types of medical and dental surgery.
