A theoretical study on the combined application of fibres for optical and acoustic waveguides

Clad glass fibres represent a promising medium for combined applications in medicine. Guidelines are presented for the selection of promising novel fi bre material for device designs of combined acoustical and optical applicat ions. This paper presents theories of weak guiding fibres and analogies, as well as differences, between acoustical and optical fibres and simple form ulas and functions for the fibre parameters as help for practical research and development. Our results (graphically represented as figures 2-4) show from the selected fibres (tables Al and 1) that the usual glass fibres are not as good for acoustical as for optical applications. Depending on the ma jor area of application these results could assist designers to make better choices for their practical work.