title: Beam characteristics of fiber-based supercontinuum light sources with mirror- and lens-based beam collimators.
abstract: Commercially available supercontinuum light sources that cover most of the solar spectrum are well suited for instrumentation, where a well-collimated beam with wide spectral coverage is needed. Typically, the optical power is emitted from a single-mode photonic-crystal fiber and the output can either be collimated using a proprietary, permanently integrated, lens-based collimator or with a customer-provided, off-axis parabolic mirror. Here, we evaluate both approaches and conclude that, superior beam quality and collimation over the whole spectral range can be obtained with an off-axis parabolic mirror, however at the price of a more complex and bulky system requiring additional user alignment.
authors.forename: Ian J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Moosmüller
authors.forename: Noopur
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mazzoleni