Dispersion phenomena in hollow alumina waveguides

Author

Jenkins, Richard Michael ; Devereux, Robert W J

Author_Institution

Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive, Malvern, Worcestershire, England

Volume

21

Issue

10

fYear

1985

fDate

10/1/1985 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1722

Lastpage

1727

Abstract

Significant variations in the attenuation characteristics of hollow alumina waveguides (suitable for use in the manufacture of CO2waveguide lasers) have been measured over the $9-11 \\mu$ m waveband. Existing waveguide transmission theory has been successfully used to explain the qualitative nature of the observed experimental results by taking into account the effects of dispersion due to active lattice absorption bands in alumina. The suprising conclusion of the work is that the major variations in attenuation are a result of a complete change in the guiding nature of the waveguide at $\\sim 10 \\mu$ m. At this point, the nature of the waveguide changes from being "leaky" at shorter wavelengths to exhibiting attenuated total internal reflection at longer wavelengths. This results in there being a distinct difference in attenuation characteristics for the two main laser emission bands centered at 9.6 and 10.6 μm, respectively.

Keywords

Aluminum materials/devices; Carbon dioxide lasers; Infrared waveguides; Waveguide lasers; Attenuation measurement; Dispersion; Hollow waveguides; Laser theory; Lattices; Manufacturing; Optical attenuators; Waveguide lasers; Waveguide theory; Waveguide transitions;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.1985.1072552

Filename

1072552