| Popis: |
Bundles of silver halide optical fibers have been fabricated by extrusion of preforms containing core-clad fibers. Silver halide fibers are transparent in the mid-IR spectral range (2 - 20 micrometers ), and therefore ordered arrays of such fibers have the potential to deliver thermal images at room temperature. Several kinds of bundles were prepared, consisting of 100 to 2500 fibers, with a fill factor of 0.34. Thermal images were delivered through the bundles and recorded using a IR cooled camera. This paper discusses the optical properties and the imaging characteristics of bundles with several fiber densities of 3 - 160 fibers per mm 2 and lengths up to 30 cm. The modulation transfer function of the bundles was measured by the knife edge sampling process, and by `bar-chart' imaging. The maximum spatial frequency that could be resolved after passing through a typical bundle was 3.5 lines per millimeter. |
