This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: At the bottom of the ocean, optical fibers transmit telecommunications and internet data around the world. Waveguides make that feat possible by channeling and amplifying the light—and therefore the data within—over enormous distances.
The technology goes beyond undersea cables. Waveguiding optics are among the most important advances in photonics since the invention of the laser. They are fundamental to the structure of glass fiber lasers, which are used for high-power national security applications like counter-drone laser systems and missile defense.
Now, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have fabricated a first-of-a-kind all-ceramic waveguide using 3D printing. The work was published in Optics Letters. "With further development, this crystalline architecture could enable more than a tenfold increase in output power over glass fibers while retaining a compact footprint," said LLNL scientist and author Ross Osborne.
Waveguides exploit the phenomenon of total internal reflection with two regions: a core and a cladding material that surrounds the core. As light travels and bounces through the core, it spreads out. When it hits the cladding, it is reflected back into the core.
Typically, waveguides are made from silica glass. A crystalline ceramic version could tolerate higher power output, improve heat dissipation and suppress instabilities. Until now, methods to fabricate such waveguides were cumbersome and unreliable, often creating very short or poor-quality waveguides.
LLNL's novel method uses direct ink writing to address that challenge. The technique squeezes filaments of ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet within an undoped garnet ceramic matrix. "We developed a direct ink writing additive-manufacturing technique for fabricating ceramics with highly tailored structures," said Osborne.
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