US Patent 7248769 Optical fiber bundles and devices including them

The present invention provides optical fiber bundles that can be configured to yield beams of radiation having tailored polarization and/or intensity properties. According to one embodiment of the invention, an optical fiber bundle includes a plurality of polarization-maintaining optical fibers, each of the polarization-maintaining optical fibers having an input end, an output end, an interior portion connecting the input end to the output end, and a polarization axis, wherein the input ends of the polarization-maintaining optical fibers are grouped in a first arrangement, and the output ends of the polarization-maintaining optical fibers are grouped in a second arrangement, and wherein the relative orientations of the polarization axes in the first arrangement is different than the relative orientation of the polarization axes in the second arrangement.