Novel high-efficiency concentrator for optical fiber communication

A novel high-efficiency concentrator based on nonimaging optics has been designed and fabricated with micromachining technique. The shape of the concentrator utilizes compound parabolic concentrator (CPC), which can concentrate the all rays that have the angles less than a critical angle /spl theta//sub c/. The theoretical concentration efficiency was calculated by ray trace simulation considering the reflectance of the concentrator's reflective layer. The metal reflection layer of reflectance 95% was formed by gold-nickel mirror plating method in a glass hole. As a result, the concentration efficiency of the concentrator was measured as 89%.