Patent ID: 7369735

Claim:
A method of propagating collected incident radiation to a remote location, the method comprising: receiving the incident radiation from at least a first direction; redirecting the incident radiation with a light directing component into a first propagation component having a plurality of windows contained therein, the light directing component being coupled to a buffer component configured to optically separate the light directing component and the first propagation component and to retain the incident radiation in the first propagation component; propagating the incident radiation into a collector region through one of the plurality of windows within the first propagation component; advancing the incident radiation within the collector region generally towards an end of the collector region, the radiation encountering a plurality of regions exhibiting a refractive index value that gradually transitions from about 1.5 to about 2.0 while advancing towards the end of the collector region; and directing the incident radiation into an optical transport assembly having a second propagation component, the second propagation component being configured to retain the incident radiation therein for being propagated to the remote location.