Collimating of diverging laser diode beam using graded-index optical fiber

This paper presents a technique for collimating a diverging beam from a laser diode using graded-index optical fiber. The optical set-up is relatively simple and easy to operate. The results show that laser beam of large divergent angle in the range of 10–35° can be reduced to a fully collimated beam with a divergent angle of less than 0.05°. The theory of the method as well as some experimental results is presented.