Properties of optical fibres at cryogenic temperatures |
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| Authors: | D Lee R Haynes DJ Skeen |
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| Institution: | Anglo-Australian Observatory, PO Box 296, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia |
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| Abstract: | A perhaps surprising property of optical fibres is that they remain flexible at cryogenic temperatures. This implies that they may be used for multiple-object and integral field spectroscopy in the thermal infrared in cryogenic instrumentation. In this paper the results of performance tests of optical fibres (silica and zirconium fluoride) at cryogenic temperatures are presented. By mounting the fibres in glass tubes with the appropriate adhesive, it was found that only negligible focal ratio degradation occurs when the fibre is cooled to 77 K. |
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| Keywords: | instrumentation: spectrographs techniques: spectroscopic |
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