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Multi-fiber Multi-fibers are the building blocks of coherent fiberoptic structures, capable of transmitting positional information or images from one end to the other. In certain environments these are also well-suited for illumination. A multi-fiber may consist of a few to many hundreds of thousands of individual fibers tightly packed and fused together into a variety of geometries. Standard configurations include hexagonal and square packs in circular, square, and hexagonal cross-sections. The constituent fiber diameters can be in the range of microns to millimeters. Fibers smaller than 1 - 3µm in diameter tend to loose the ability to transmit most visible light because the cladding thickness of such a small fiber falls short of that which is required for total internal reflection at visible wavelengths. However, losses due to thin cladding can be reduced by designing a lower OAR. Unfortunately, a lower OAR also involves higher losses, so a balance must be achieved. Multi-fibers, like fibers and rods, become fairly rigid structures when they are larger than about 1.5mm (0.06"), but they can be permanently bent and shaped to fit special routing requirements. Multi-fibers are available with or without EMA, and can be made with a wide variety of numerical apertures and OAR's. When requesting a quote on a multi-fiber structure, please be sure to include (if relevant):
As with image conduits, multi-fibers can be designed to have custom OAR's, constituent fiber diameters, EMA configurations, and numerical apertures.
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