Other

Kathryn Riddick

Andrew P Riser

An optical fiber illumination system comprises a segmented reflector that efficiently couples energy from a lamp into a plurality of optical fibers. The segmented reflector offers the ability to improve the coupling efficiency by utilizing the cross-sectional area and numerical aperture of more than one optical fiber at the output of a reflector. Also this reduces the energy collected by a single fiber, and can be useful in preventing damage created by the source intensity. In practice, a source lamp is placed along a reflector axis. The reflector is specifically designed for a particular style and type of lamp, and is designed to collect as many rays from that lamp as possible. In a preferred embodiment, the reflector comprises four segments. Each of the four segments forms a distinct focus. In this embodiment, a plurality of lightguides, preferably optical fibers, are placed at the output of the reflector, one each at each focus of the respective reflector segments, with the longitudinal axis of each optical fiber substantially parallel to the axes of the reflector and the lamp. Assuming radial symmetry, each of the four fibers will collect substantially the same amount of light energy, and will transmit this light energy to an end device or user.

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Franklin, TN, United States of America

Kathryn Riddick