A collector for propagating incident radiation to a remote location. The collector comprises, a light directing component coupled to a buffer component, a first propagation component coupled to the buffer component and configured to transmit the incident radiation into a collector region through one of a plurality of windows, and an optical transport assembly coupled to an end of the collector region and having a second propagation component. Each light directing component is configured to redirect the incident radiation from a first direction to a second direction, and the collector region includes a plurality of regions exhibiting a refractive index value that gradually transitions from about 1.5 to about 2.0. The second propagation component is further configured to retain the incident radiation.
REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/215,789, filed Aug. 30, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,164,839, which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/369,052, filed Feb. 18, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,957,650, the disclosures of which are hereby expressly incorporated in their entirety by this reference. This patent application also claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/357,705, filed on Feb. 15, 2002, the disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference.
