Splicing and connectorization of photonic crystal fibres

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 (10, 20, 25, 30, 110); and (b) a microstructured cladding region, said cladding region surrounding said core region and comprising: (b1) an inner cladding region with inner cladding features (13, 22, 112) arranged in an inner cladding background material (11, 21, 111) 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 (12, 24, 114) 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

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 spliceable optical fibre; an article comprising a spliceable optical fibre. THE TECHNICAL FIELD [0002] 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.]). [0003] The light guiding principle can either be based on Total Internal Reflection (TIR) similar to t...

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Benefits of technology

[0078] In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the core region has a largest dimension, rPCF, being in the range of 0.8 μm to 3.0 μm whereby an optical fibre with a small core (0.8-3.0 μm) that can couple light with low loss to other optical components can be obtained.

[0079] In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the inner cladding regio

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 Conferen

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