Tapered fiber-optic sheet formation and its image-guiding properties

Polymer fiber-optic sheets with tapered guides have been made by selective photopolymerization for use as image transformers. A new fabrication technique has been proposed, and good image-guiding properties have been achieved. It has been confirmed theoretically and experimentally that scatterers in cladding layers permit high resolution and surface cladding layers with large refractive-index differences by polymer coating give high lighting efficiency. These tapered fiber-optic sheets used as an image reducer have resolutions of up to 6 lines/mm and lighting efficiency of ~4%.