Formation of long and thin polymer fiber using nondiffracting beam

We present a unique method that utilizes high intensity core of the zero-order nondiffracting beam (NDB) to fabricate a homogeneous polymer fiber as narrow as 2 mu m and as long as centimeters. The constant diameter of the fiber along all its length is done by the propagation invariant properties of the NDB. The length of the fiber is determined by the maximum propagation distance of the NDB which is much longer than the classical Gaussian beam of comparable width. Moreover, we also proved that the self-writing waveguide mechanism prolongs the length of the developed fibers. Circular movement of the NDB creates hollow fiber, several co-axial, or overlapping fibers. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.