External Reflection from Omnidirectional Dielectric Mirror Fibers
Shandon D. Hart,1
Garry R. Maskaly,1
Burak Temelkuran,13
Peter H. Prideaux,3
John D. Joannopoulos,23
Yoel Fink13*
We report the design and fabrication of a multilayered macroscopic
fiber preform and the subsequent drawing and optical characterization of extended lengths of omnidirectional dielectric mirror fibers with
submicrometer layer thickness. A pair of glassy materials with
substantially different indices of refraction, but with similar thermomechanical properties, was used to construct 21 layers of alternating refractive index surrounding a tough polymer core. Large
directional photonic band gaps and high reflection efficiencies comparable to those of the best metallic reflectors were obtained. Potential applications of these fibers include woven fabrics for radiation barriers, spectral authentication of cloth, and filters for
telecommunications.
1 Department of Materials Science and
Engineering,
2 Department of Physics,
3 Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
