Flexible hollow fiber for pulse compressors

A stretched flexible hollow fiber is proposed as a waveguide in high-energy pulse compressors. This approach leads to superior straightness virtually independent of the fiber length. It is particularly well suited for fibers with inner diameters much larger than the wavelength, where the main limitation for the fiber length is losses due to undesired fiber bending. The construction issues are discussed, and the quality of the waveguide is proved by comparing the experimental data with calculations showing that the transmission of the fiber reaches the theoretical limit and that the emerging beam is diffraction limited. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.