Fiber Configuration

By the term "fiber configuration," we mean the fabrication of a complete optical fiber cable from a raw fiber. Essentially, this involves assembling a jacket on the fiber, mounting the connectors and polishing the fiber ends.

Protective Jackets 

LINOS offers standard fiber cable configurations in lengths of 2 and 3 m. These are encased in a flexible coil made of stainless steel in order to protect the fiber bundle from external damage during use: See table.

Fiber Connectors 

The most important components for fabricating fiber cables are the connectors that are mounted on both ends of the fiber. LINOS offers FC connectors with different polish options: see diagram. For polarization-maintaining fibers, the slow axis must be parallel to the end surface of the fiber and parallel to the anti-twist lock.

Fiber Polishs

Once the connectors have been mounted on the fiber, the ends are polished to produce the optical quality of the end surfaces and the geometric shape of the ferrule and fiber. Several polish options are available to choose from. The most common types of polish are shown in the schematic diagram. Each circle shows the front part of the ferrule (2.5 mm Ø) with the fiber bonded in the center.

The simplest polish is FC polish in which the fiber is polished perpendicu­larly to its axis (PC stands for “flat connector”). FC/PC polish, which means the surface is polished in a slightly spherical manner, is commonly used if the connectors are butted in order to connect two fiber cables (PC stands for “physical contact”). Unlike the PC polish, the APC polish (APC: “angled physical contact”) means that the fiber end is polished at an 8° angle to prevent interfering back reflection, as in the light source. LINOS offers so-called AFC polish (AFC: “angled flat connector”) as its standard polish. On the one hand, this polish excels in sup­pressing back reflection thanks to its 8° angle and, on the other hand, its flat end surface ensures high reproducibility for exchanging fibers. Here, it is impor­tant that the spacing between the edge of the angleand the fiber core be main­tained as accurately as possible. Only in this way can the high transmission of fiber coupler systems be maintained when fibers are exchanged, without having to refocus the lens.