Raytheon Company

Packard Hughes Interconnect Company

Laurie Keiko Taira-Griffin

Joseph A Wysocki

John Steven Szalay

Michael R Vince

Stephen W McCahon

The end face (32) of the optical fiber (24) of a fiber optical terminal (10) is finished by installing the fiber in a terminal ferrule (18), cleaving an end of the fiber close to the end face (54) of the ferrule, and heating the cleaved fiber end face so as to soften its end face and cause it to assume a smooth, rounded configuration. The heating is accomplished, for a glass fiber, by application of the beam of a carbon dioxide laser (60) to the optical fiber end face. The heat softened end face assumes a smooth, rounded configuration that minimizes back reflection. A system including a laser (105), shutter (102), beam expander (108) and parabolic mirror (110) heats the fiber end face that is positioned at the parabola faces by a three axis manipulator (156,158) and holder (152). Orthogonal viewing systems (126, 142) enable visual monitoring of the process.

Heat formed optical fiber end face

The present invention includes a fiber optic interconnection system utilizing a relatively small space for interconnection between two fiber optic termini which are not approaching each other axially but are at an angle which may be acute. The system according to the present invention allows light rays to expand from one fiber optic terminus through a lens, reflecting off the back of the lens and through the other fiber optic terminus. The expansion and contraction of the light rays is dependent upon the refractive indices of the cores of the fiber optic lines, the medium and the lens. The interconnection system allows two fiber optic termini to mate in a very small area while traversing a sharp angle. The fiber optic interconnection system provides an interface at an acute angle, such as 90 degrees, rather than butt mating of two termini and forcibly bending the fibers extending from the rear of the terminus bodies.

Growing community of inventors

Huntington Beach, CA, United States of America

Laurie Keiko Taira-Griffin