Flexible hollow fibers with 530-μm-bore size were developed for infrared laser delivery. Sturdy hollow fibers were fabricated by liquid-phase coating techniques. A silica glass capillary is used as the substrate. Acrylic silicone resin is used as a buffer layer and the buffer layer is firstly coated on the inner surface of the capillary to protect the glass tube from chemical damages due to the following silver plating process. A silver layer was inner-plated by using the conventional silver mirror-plating technique. To improve adhesion of catalyst to the buffer layer, a surface conditioner has been introduced in the method of silver mirror-plating technique. We discuss improvement of transmission properties of sturdy polymer-coated silver hollow fibers for the Er:YAG laser and red pilot beam delivery.

Date Published: 28 February 2017
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10058, Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Applications XVII, 1005810 (28 February 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2249749

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10058:
Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Applications XVII
Israel Gannot, Editor(s)