Fusion Splicing between Deposited Silica Waveguides and Optical Fibers.

Along with the development of optical circuit elements, the problem of coupling these elements to optical fibers, light sources and detectors is very important in the further realization of highly efficient malfunction optical transmissions systems. In conjuction with the coupling of optical circuit elements to fiber, this paper reports on fusion splicing using the heat of a C02 gas laser. The circuit elements employ deposited silica waveguide (DS guide), which is excellent with regard to loss, fabrication precision, stability, etc. For coupling of multimode graded-index fiber to multimode DS guide the average loss of fusion splices was 0.18 dB. Measurement of the reflected light from the splices confirmed that fusion caused the disappearance of reflections. The average loss of fusion splices between single-mode fiber and single-mode DS guide was 0.19 dB. A multiple splice of 10 fibers to 10 multimode DS guides spaced 200 µm apart shows the prospect of realizing high-density multiple fusion splices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]