IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v4y2013i1d10.1038_ncomms2894.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Focusing light with a flame lens

Author

Listed:
  • Max M. Michaelis

    (School of Physics, University of KwaZulu–Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa)

  • Cosmas Mafusire

    (National Laser Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, P.O. Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa)

  • Jan-Hendrik Grobler

    (National Laser Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, P.O. Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa)

  • Andrew Forbes

    (School of Physics, University of KwaZulu–Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa
    National Laser Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, P.O. Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa)

Abstract

The lens is a well-understood optical component used for focusing light, but is almost exclusively made in the solid-state form and, thus, suffers from optical damage at high powers. Attempts to overcome this through the use of non-solid graded-index media for lensing, for example, heated gasses, have found limited application owing to their long focal lengths. Here we describe the first flame lens, which produces a sharp focus with very little stray light and has a fourfold increase in focal power per unit length over previous gas lenses. Such gas devices remain topical due to their inherent ability to deliver high-power laser beams: our flame lens has a ‘damage’ threshold that is several orders of magnitude higher than that of most conventional lenses and is immediately repaired after damage for reuse, and thus will be of use in focusing high-irradiance laser beams.

Suggested Citation

  • Max M. Michaelis & Cosmas Mafusire & Jan-Hendrik Grobler & Andrew Forbes, 2013. "Focusing light with a flame lens," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2894
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2894
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2894
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms2894?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2894. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.