3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation

Grigorii S. Sokolovskii; Vasileia Melissinaki; Ksenia A. Fedorova; Vladislav V. Dudelev; Sergey N. Losev; Vladislav E. Bougrov; Wilson Sibbett; Maria Farsari; Edik U. Rafailov

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6

3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation

Grigorii S. Sokolovskii, Vasileia Melissinaki, Ksenia A. Fedorova, Vladislav V. Dudelev, Sergey N. Losev, Vladislav E. Bougrov, Wilson Sibbett, Maria Farsari, Edik U. Rafailov

Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Multimode high-power laser diodes suffer from inefficient beam focusing, leading to a focal spot 10–100 times greater than the diffraction limit. This inevitably restricts their wider use in ‘direct-diode’ applications in materials processing and biomedical photonics. We report here a ‘super-focusing’ characteristic for laser diodes, where the exploitation of self-interference of modes enables a significant reduction of the focal spot size. This is achieved by employing a conical microlens fabricated on the tip of a multimode optical fibre using 3D laser nano-printing (also known as multi-photon lithography). When refracted by the conical surface, the modes of the fibre-coupled laser beam self-interfere and form an elongated narrow focus, usually referred to as a ‘needle’ beam. The multiphoton lithography technique allows the realisation of almost any optical element on a fibre tip, thus providing the most suitable interface for free-space applications of multimode fibre-delivered laser beams. In addition, we demonstrate the optical trapping of microscopic objects with a super-focused multimode laser diode beam thus rising new opportunities within the applications sector where lab-on-chip configurations can be exploited. Most importantly, the demonstrated super-focusing approach opens up new avenues for the ‘direct-diode’ applications in material processing and 3D printing, where both high power and tight focusing is required.

Original language	English
Article number	14618
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	8
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6
Publication status	Published - 2 Oct 2018

Bibliographical note

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or
format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted
by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the
copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
© The Author(s) 2018

Access to Document

10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6Licence: CC BY 3.0

3D laser nano-printing on fbre paves
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2018
Final published version, 1.55 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

@article{6738e469c4c8461dafd648a495c42dbf,

title = "3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation",

abstract = "Multimode high-power laser diodes suffer from inefficient beam focusing, leading to a focal spot 10–100 times greater than the diffraction limit. This inevitably restricts their wider use in {\textquoteleft}direct-diode{\textquoteright} applications in materials processing and biomedical photonics. We report here a {\textquoteleft}super-focusing{\textquoteright} characteristic for laser diodes, where the exploitation of self-interference of modes enables a significant reduction of the focal spot size. This is achieved by employing a conical microlens fabricated on the tip of a multimode optical fibre using 3D laser nano-printing (also known as multi-photon lithography). When refracted by the conical surface, the modes of the fibre-coupled laser beam self-interfere and form an elongated narrow focus, usually referred to as a {\textquoteleft}needle{\textquoteright} beam. The multiphoton lithography technique allows the realisation of almost any optical element on a fibre tip, thus providing the most suitable interface for free-space applications of multimode fibre-delivered laser beams. In addition, we demonstrate the optical trapping of microscopic objects with a super-focused multimode laser diode beam thus rising new opportunities within the applications sector where lab-on-chip configurations can be exploited. Most importantly, the demonstrated super-focusing approach opens up new avenues for the {\textquoteleft}direct-diode{\textquoteright} applications in material processing and 3D printing, where both high power and tight focusing is required.",

author = "Sokolovskii, {Grigorii S.} and Vasileia Melissinaki and Fedorova, {Ksenia A.} and Dudelev, {Vladislav V.} and Losev, {Sergey N.} and Bougrov, {Vladislav E.} and Wilson Sibbett and Maria Farsari and Rafailov, {Edik U.}",

note = "This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2018",

year = "2018",

month = oct,

day = "2",

doi = "10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6",

language = "English",

volume = "8",

journal = "Scientific Reports",

issn = "2045-2322",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - 3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation

AU - Sokolovskii, Grigorii S.

AU - Melissinaki, Vasileia

AU - Fedorova, Ksenia A.

AU - Dudelev, Vladislav V.

AU - Losev, Sergey N.

AU - Bougrov, Vladislav E.

AU - Sibbett, Wilson

AU - Farsari, Maria

AU - Rafailov, Edik U.

N1 - This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2018

PY - 2018/10/2

Y1 - 2018/10/2

N2 - Multimode high-power laser diodes suffer from inefficient beam focusing, leading to a focal spot 10–100 times greater than the diffraction limit. This inevitably restricts their wider use in ‘direct-diode’ applications in materials processing and biomedical photonics. We report here a ‘super-focusing’ characteristic for laser diodes, where the exploitation of self-interference of modes enables a significant reduction of the focal spot size. This is achieved by employing a conical microlens fabricated on the tip of a multimode optical fibre using 3D laser nano-printing (also known as multi-photon lithography). When refracted by the conical surface, the modes of the fibre-coupled laser beam self-interfere and form an elongated narrow focus, usually referred to as a ‘needle’ beam. The multiphoton lithography technique allows the realisation of almost any optical element on a fibre tip, thus providing the most suitable interface for free-space applications of multimode fibre-delivered laser beams. In addition, we demonstrate the optical trapping of microscopic objects with a super-focused multimode laser diode beam thus rising new opportunities within the applications sector where lab-on-chip configurations can be exploited. Most importantly, the demonstrated super-focusing approach opens up new avenues for the ‘direct-diode’ applications in material processing and 3D printing, where both high power and tight focusing is required.

AB - Multimode high-power laser diodes suffer from inefficient beam focusing, leading to a focal spot 10–100 times greater than the diffraction limit. This inevitably restricts their wider use in ‘direct-diode’ applications in materials processing and biomedical photonics. We report here a ‘super-focusing’ characteristic for laser diodes, where the exploitation of self-interference of modes enables a significant reduction of the focal spot size. This is achieved by employing a conical microlens fabricated on the tip of a multimode optical fibre using 3D laser nano-printing (also known as multi-photon lithography). When refracted by the conical surface, the modes of the fibre-coupled laser beam self-interfere and form an elongated narrow focus, usually referred to as a ‘needle’ beam. The multiphoton lithography technique allows the realisation of almost any optical element on a fibre tip, thus providing the most suitable interface for free-space applications of multimode fibre-delivered laser beams. In addition, we demonstrate the optical trapping of microscopic objects with a super-focused multimode laser diode beam thus rising new opportunities within the applications sector where lab-on-chip configurations can be exploited. Most importantly, the demonstrated super-focusing approach opens up new avenues for the ‘direct-diode’ applications in material processing and 3D printing, where both high power and tight focusing is required.

UR - http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32970-6

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6

DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-32970-6

M3 - Article

SN - 2045-2322

VL - 8

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

IS - 1

M1 - 14618

ER -

3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this