Schott Corporation

Scott A Raszka

Kevin Tabor

Paulettel Onorato

Gerald P Senecal

An elongated light-guiding element includes opposed incident and emission ends between which light propagates by total internal reflection. The light-guiding element includes a glass core with first and second glass core ends and a glass-core outer surface. A non-glass polymeric optical layer extends over at least a portion of the length of the glass core and is disposed peripherally thereabout. The optical layer has first and second optical-layer ends and an optical-layer exterior surface extending between the first and second optical-layer ends. The glass core and the polymeric optical layer exhibit indices of refraction that are matched to one another as closely as practicable such that the combination of the glass core and the optical layer exhibits optical properties similar to those that would be exhibited by an optical element of similar shape and dimensions fabricated from a single, continuous mass of optical material having a refractive index equal to the that of the glass core material.

Light conduits having peripheral, shape-defining polymer overmolds

A of fabricating a partially flexible optical fiber bundle includes forming plural helical fiber ribbons, each helical ribbon being formed by winding a fiber about a mandrel and adjacently fusing a first selected set of fiber portions within each ribbon to define and ends region. The ends regions of multiple fiber helixes are stacked and bonded to form a fiber bundle with and ends section. The ends section is cut through to yield opposed input and output ends of the fiber bundle. Intermediate rigid sections are formed along the length of the bundle by various alternative methods of adjacently bonding selected portions of the constituent ribbon and bundle fibers.

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Woodstock, CT, United States of America

Scott A Raszka