Splicing and connectorization of photonic crystal fibers

Abstract

A method of coupling a spliceable optical fibre for transmission of light in its longitudinal direction to an optical component, the method comprising (A) providing the spliceable optical fibre, said spliceable optical fibre comprising: (a) a core region; and (b) a microstructured cladding region, said cladding region surrounding said core region and comprising: (bI) an inner cladding region with inner cladding features arranged in an inner cladding background material with a refractive index n1, said inner cladding features comprising thermally collapsible holes or voids, and (b2) an outer cladding region with an outer cladding background material with a refractive index n2; said spliceable optical fibre having at least one end; (B) collapsing said thermally collapsible holes or voids by heating said least one end of said spliceable optical fibre; and (C) coupling said collapsed spliceable optical fibre end to the optical component. A spliceable optical fibre; a preform for producing a spliceable optical fibre; a method of producing a spliceable optical fibre comprising drawing of the preform; a heat-treated spliceable optical fibre; an article comprising a spliceable optical fibre is further disclosed.

Description

1. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to a method of coupling a spliceable optical fibre to an optical component; a spliceable optical fibre; a preform for producing a spliceable optical fibre; a method of producing a spliceable optical fibre comprising drawing of the preform; a heat-treated splice able optical fibre; an article comprising a spliceable optical fibre. [0002] 1. The Technical Field [0003] In recent years a new class of optical fibres has appeared. The optical guiding mechanism in these fibres is provided by introducing a number of holes or voids in the optical fibres. These holes typically run parallel with the fibre and extend along the fibre length. Such fibres are generally described by A. Bjarklev et al. in “Photonic Crystal Fibres”, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003 (ISBN 1-4020-7610-X), which is referred to in the following as [Bjarklev et al.]). [0004] The light guiding principle can either be based on Total Internal Reflection (TIR...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an improved method for coupling a photonic crystal fibre to an optical component, such as a standard optical fibre. The invention also includes improved designs for controlling mode expansion at the end of the fibre. The invention provides small core PCFs that can be spliced with low loss and high strength to standard optical fibres, as well as low-loss and high-strength splices between PCF and standard non-microstructured optical fibres. The invention also provides methods for making such splices and uses PCFs with improved splice properties.

Problems solved by technology

Transition from small core PCFs to standard optical fibers is generally difficult.

Splice losses are typically high (≧0.3 dB—see e.g. Hansen et al., “Highly Nonlinear Photonic Crystal Fiber with Zero-Dispersion at 1.55 μm” Optical Fiber Communication Conference 2002 post deadline paper, 2002), and the mechanical strength is poor when short term heating (sometimes referred to as “cold” splices) is used.

However, tapering is time-consuming and laborious work involving manufacturing of tapered optical fibre regions.

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