Optical Combining in Medium Infrared Wavelength Range and Its Applications.

A review on the optical combining in medium infrared wavelength range is illustrated. Moreover, details on the design, fabrication and characterization of novel combiners based on multimode step-index fluoroindate optical fibers (InF 3 ) are given. The electromagnetic design of the combiner is carried out through modal investigation and the beam propagation method is exploited to evaluate the transmission efficiency. In the fabrication process, including the normalization procedure, the low melting temperature and the mechanical properties of fluoroindate glasses are taken into account. The repeatability and absence of crystallization are verified. The experimental results agree with the simulation and pave the way for a number of applications in the mid-infrared spectral range.