Optoelectronics

Optimised centricity in free-standing fibres

25th November 2014
Barney Scott
0

In laser technology, optical output power often has to be coupled into optical fibres, and with as little loss as possible. Fibres with core diameters of 200-1500µm are commonly used to transmit laser power. Laser Components are able to assemble these fibres with either SMA or D80 connectors according to specific requirements.

To avoid unwanted scatter from stray light, it is necessary to assemble ferrules with free-standing fibres by using a shorter ferrule. This allows any misdirected light that does not couple into the fibre to pass outside the ferrule and is effectively ‘beam dumped’ into the void surrounding the ferrule within the connector package.

One quality criterion in such assemblies is the centricity of the fibre core to the ferrule’s outer diameter. This plays a particularly important role in connectors without a keyway, like those used in polarisation maintaining fibres. According to Laser Components, a centricity of under 10µm is achieved in its production process, allowing assembled cables in field applications to be changed without any adjustment. To reduce the amount of reflections at the air/glass interface, fibre end faces can be coated by request. The transmission of AR-coated fibres is improved by 3.5 to 4% per face.

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