AT&T Co’s Bell Laboratories claims to have developed a much more light-efficient way to attach lasers to the fibre optic cables: it says that in current connections about half the laser light is lost, but that its new prototype system reduces that to 10%; instead of tapering the end of the cable and melting it before attaching it to the laser, the new method involves micromachining the spinning fibre in a narrowly focused laser beam to cut and heat it, leaving a hyperbolic shaped end that is much more efficient at capturing the light.
