The paper updates and summarizes contemporary applications of capillary optical fibers. Some of these applications are straight consequence of the classical capillary properties and capillary devices like: rheometry, electrophoresis, column chromatography (gas and liquid). Some new applications are tightly connected with co-propagation (or counter-propagation) of micro-mass together with optical wave - evanescent or of considerable intensity. In the first case, the optical wave is propagated in a narrow (more and more frequently single-mode) optical ring core adjacent to the capillary hole. The optical propagation is purely refractive. In the second case, the intensity maximum of optical wave is on the capillary long axis, i.e. in the center of the hole. The optical propagation is purely photonic, i.e. in a Bragg waveguide (one dimensional photonic band-gap). The capillary hole is filled with vacuum or with propagated matter (gas, liquid, single atoms, continuous particle arrangement). Optical capillaries, filamentary and embedded, are turning to a fundamental component of nano- and micro-MOEMS.

Date Published: 12 October 2006
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 6347, Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2006, 63470Z (12 October 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.714616

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6347:
Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2006
Ryszard S. Romaniuk, Editor(s)