Splicing silica fibers with an electric arc

Abstract

A method of making low-loss splices in silica fibers by fusing them together with the heat from an electric arc has been developed. Accurate alignment is obtained by the use of a vacuum chuck. Step-index fibers with core diameter of 75 microm and o.d. of 125 microm were spliced, with individual splice losses as low as 0.03 dB and with an average loss in forty-five splices of 0.14 dB. The splices can be made quickly and easily and add no bulk.

Recent Advances on Optical Sensing Using Photonic Crystal Fibers

“…Moreover, to be practically useful in remote gas detection systems, a PCF must also be connected to standard single mode fiber (SMF), which is still a rather delicate process. The splice losses between PCF and SMF have been studied in the last years by several groups [18][19][20][21][22]. A study of the splicing and coupling losses was performed for the two different types of HC-PCF previously mentioned.…”

Fused Microknot Optical Resonators in Folded Photonic Tapers for in-Liquid Durable Sensing

“…Thus, the simplicity of OMFs as sensors based on photonic transmission is typically accompanied by degraded performance as well as mechanical fragility. The sustainability of OMFs can be significantly enhanced [ 26 ] based on fusing manually-prepared OMFs around a desirable knot diameter, either by electrical [ 27 , 28 ] or other [ 29 , 30 , 31 ] techniques.…”

Fibre optic devices produced by arc discharges

“…As far as fibre optics technology is concerned, arc discharges were first applied to fibre fusion splicing [1,2]. In the past thirty years this basic operation evolved due to the request for splicing dissimilar fibres which may require modefield adjustment based on core dopant diffusion [3,4].…”