Cleaved end-face quality of microstructured polymer optical fibres

✍ Scribed by S.H. Law; M.A. van Eijkelenborg; G.W. Barton; C. Yan; R. Lwin; J. Gan

• Book ID: 103872673
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 739 KB
• Volume: 265
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0030-4018
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optcom.2006.04.059

✦ Synopsis

The cutting of a microstructured polymer optical fibre to form an optical end-face is studied. The effect of the temperature and speed of the cutting blade on the end-face is qualitatively assessed and it is found that for fibres at temperatures in the range 70-90 °C, a blade at a similar temperature moving at a speed of less than 0.5 mm/s produces a good quality end-face. The nature of the damage caused by the cutting process was examined and found to vary with fibre temperature, blade quality and cut depth. Thermo-mechanical analysis showed that the drawn material was significantly more visco-elastic than the annealed raw material in the 70-90 °C temperature range. The behaviour of the surface damage with cut depth was found to be consistent with the behaviour of a visco-elastic material.