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A focused carbon dioxide laser beam is used to microstructure fibers that have already been narrowed by conventional fiber tapering. We describe three new miniature devices made with this technique: a fused fiber microcoupler with an interaction length of 200 mum, a long-period grating made from a periodic chain of microtapers, and a new type of prolate whispering-gallery mode microcavity.

Background It is striking how chemists and biologists showed an interest for ionizing radiations very soon after their discovery by Roentgen and Becquerel, and initiated parallel developments of these new fields of research: radiation chemistry and radiobiology. Radiation chemistry deals with the chemical effects produced when materials are exposed to ionizing radiations and begun long before 1942 when it was formally named by Burton (Magee 1988). Early pioneering works were achieved by Curie and Debierne in 1901 by observing gas bubbling out of radium salt solutions, Giesel in 1902 (Giesel 1902), Ramsay in 1903, and the progress and enthusiasm persisted throughout the beginning of 20th century (Debierne 1914; Kernbaum 1909