Fiber array （Fiber Array, abbreviation FA）, utilize V Groove （V-Groove） Substrate , Install a bundle of optical fibers or a strip of optical fibers on the substrate at specified intervals , Array formed by .
Optical fiber array in optical communication mainly includes substrate , Pressing plate , And optical fiber . A plurality of grooves are usually cut at the base of the substrate , Press the pressing plate and fix the optical fiber inserted into the groove . Optical fiber arrays have very high requirements for materials and manufacturing processes .
Optical fiber arrays mainly rely on precision etching V Groove to achieve positioning .V The groove requires a special cutting process to achieve accurate optical fiber positioning , Place the bare optical fiber part with the optical fiber coating removed on the V In groove , This process requires ultra precision machining technology to accurately locate the optical fiber core in V In groove , To reduce connection loss , It is then pressurized through the pressurizer component and fixed with adhesive , The end face is optically ground , Form optical fiber array . The substrate material will affect the optical properties of optical fiber array , Materials with low expansion coefficient need to be used to ensure that the optical fiber array is stress free , High reliability and no fiber shift at high temperature . Glass and silicon are commonly used materials , There are also ceramics , Conductive substrate and plastic substrate .
V Groove to groove distance , Number of fibre channels , And grinding angle are customized according to demand , However, the accuracy of center to center dimensions between adjacent grooves is ±
0.5μm, The parallelism of the groove length direction between adjacent grooves is ± 0.1 Within degrees .FA Most of the optical fibers used are color ribbon optical fibers , It has good bending resistance , Colorful colors can easily distinguish channels .
Fiber arrays are usually used in planar optical waveguides , Arrayed waveguide grating , Active / Passive array optical fiber device , MEMS ; Multichannel optical module, etc . among , Fiber array is a planar optical waveguide splitter （PLC
Splitter） One of the important components , It can greatly reduce the loss of optical waveguide devices and optical coupling alignment .
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