Abstract

Polishing of glass /1/ or diamand /2/ is known. A new application of glass surface treatment is presented here. Fine polishing of optical fiber end (silica type), core/cladding surface is performed. A small power monomode longitudinal 10 W continuous wave CO₂ laser is used. Laser power density is 140 W/cm². The beam is spatially filtered m order to increase the beam uniformity. A decrease of the roughness from 3 microns to les than one hundred of nanometers has been achieved.

© 2000 IEEE