Some radiometric properties of gradient-index fiber lenses

Abstract

Some radiometric properties of gradient-index fiber lenses and lens arrays are explored. Consideration is restricted to the paraxial region of fibers that produce erect images at unit magnification. In two instances the radiometric properties of these lenses and lens arrays are considerably different from the properties of conventional (nongradient) lenses. First, the off-axis image plane irradiance for a single gradient-index fiber falls off far more rapidly than the familiar cos⁴ law. Second, the exposure (integrated image irradiance) for a fiber array is independent of the object-to-image distance.