Patent ID: 7317857

Claim:
An improved optical fiber for delivering light having a selected wavelength to or from a work object, comprising; a glass core that is multimode at the selected wavelength, said core comprising an index of refraction and a diameter D core ; a glass cladding disposed about said glass core, said glass cladding comprising an outer diameter D cladding and a first index of refraction that is less than said index of refraction of said core, where [D cladding /D core ] 2 is no greater than 1.5, and wherein if one or both of said diameters D core and D cladding have a maximum and a minimum value, the maximum value is used in the foregoing formula; and a second cladding disposed about said glass cladding, said second cladding comprising an optically cured polymer, said polymer comprising an index of refraction that is less than said first index of refraction and having a modulus of no greater than 100 MPa.