Laser polishing of optical fiber end surface

Mircea V. Udrea; Hamdi Orun; Ali Alacakir

doi:10.1117/1.1390517

1 September 2001 Laser polishing of optical fiber end surface

Mircea V. Udrea, Hamdi Orun, Ali Alacakir

Optical Engineering, Vol. 40, Issue 9, (September 2001). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.1390517

A new application of glass surface treatment is presented. Fine polishing of optical fiber end (silica type), core/cladding surface is performed. A low-power monomode longitudinal 10-W continuous wave CO2 laser is used. Laser power density is 140 W/cm2. The beam is spatially filtered to increase the beam uniformity. A decrease of the roughness from 2.5 ?m average to less than 100 nm is achieved. The microstructure of the surfaces is studied using atomic force microscopy. An optimum irradiation time of exposure of 6 s is found. A loss decrease of 1.5 dB after laser irradiation is measured. Thus, a simple method to further decrease the optical fiber losses after mechanical polishing is put into evidence. This method is easy to apply to any type of optical fiber. Moreover, it is considered that for such polished fibers, when used in conjunction with a connector (FC/PC, ST, SC, APC, and DIN type connectors), the efficiency in any application increases.

©(2001) Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

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Mircea V. Udrea, Hamdi Orun, and Ali Alacakir "Laser polishing of optical fiber end surface," Optical Engineering 40(9), (1 September 2001). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.1390517

Published: 1 September 2001

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