Fiber optic array splicing

Abstract

A technique has been reported1 that shows promise for field-splicing groups of optical fibers. Grooved aluminum chips were initially interleaved between linear arrays of optical fibers to form a precise two-dimensional array. This array was then potted to retain the precise geometry and polished to provide good ends on all the fibers at once. Two such arrays are brought together to form a butt joint splice. Improved chips are presently being used that yield greatly improved alignment. This alignment improvement promises a significant reduction over the array splice loss that was obtained with the original aluminum chips1 (mean loss = 0.42 dB with 70% less than 0.5 dB).