Fiber Arrays

Applications of Fiber Arrays

Coupling to Photonic Integrated Circuits. When the output of the optical fiber is sent to the free space, it is usually collimated with the lens array, because in order to determine the beam direction and collimation, the optical fiber spacing needs to accurately match the lens spacing.

Data/Telecom Applications. In CATV, signal separation is usually accomplished by planar waveguide circuits, and optical fiber arrays are a natural solution for coupling optical fibers to splitters.

Astronomical Telescopes. In astronomical telescopes, optical fibers are used to transmit light from telescopes to other devices for further analysis, and optical fiber arrays provide the possibility to provide multiple observation directions.

Technical Details of Fiber Arrays

Put individual fibers into V-grooves made on some solid surface, which is the process of forming linear v groove fiber array. Numbers and types of fibers, their spacing and core diameter and numerical aperture, or other ways of specifying the refractive index profile, which determines the mode structure, and fiber core positioning accuracy is also an important technical detail.   Fiber diameter. Sometimes an optical fiber array can be formed by arranging multiple original-sized optical fibers. For some applications, smaller fibers and / or smaller core spacing are required, and correspondingly smaller fibers can be used directly or tapered fibers can be used.

FAU for Long-Haul and Metro Networks

The FAU unit may be placed in a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM). There are also some functions in long-distance and metro networks, and Fau unit plays an important role. It can be used as an optical transmission to remotely switch traffic from a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system at the wavelength layer.

V-Groove and Optical Fiber Arrays

High fiber placement tolerance linear arrays can be used in various industries, such as telecom, data transmission and switching, as well as for laser diode-pumped lasers and other general fiber instrumentation. Tight tolerances allow these V-groove arrays to provide accuracy to ensure the alignment of single-mode and multimode fibers within these modules.