Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Limited

Norio Kashima

Toshiaki Kakii

Yuichi Toda

Koichiro Matsuno

Yuichi Usui

Mitsuaki Osanai

Fumihiro Nihei

Yasuyaki Kato

An apparatus for aligning the centers of the cores of two optical fibers prior to their being fused together for splicing. A pair of supporting members are provided, each of which has a V-shaped recess in which an end of a respective one of the optical fibers is fixed. The supporting members are movable relative to one another in a direction substantially perpendicular to the axial direction of the optical fibers. A transparent light conducting member forms a bottom portion of the recess of at least one of the supporting members. A photodetector is optically coupled to the light conducting member.

Apparatus for aligning optical fibers

An optical connector ferrule and a method for producing such an optical connector ferrule wherein the bonding between a metal sleeve and the main body of the ferrule, which is made of a synthetic resin material, is markedly improved. A rearward end of the metal sleeve is embedded in the synthetic resin material, preferably, around a flange of the main body. The metal sleeve may be provided with irregularities on one or both of the inner and outer surfaces thereof to further improve the adhesion between the resin of the main body and the metal sleeve.

Optical connector ferrule and process for production thereof

A method for fusion-splicing aligned optical fibers using heat generated by gas discharge produced between electrodes which are energized by an AC voltage. At first, a high trigger voltage is applied across the electrodes to generate the discharge, after which an AC voltage lower than the trigger voltage is applied across the electrodes to produce steady-state discharge. The AC voltage is selected to satisfy the relation, 10t.sub.O .gtoreq.(t.sub.f +t.sub.d +t.sub.r), where t.sub.O is the time necessary for ions created by the discharge to flow from one of the electrodes to the other and t.sub.f, t.sub.d and t.sub.r are the fall time, the quiescent time and the rise time of the AC voltage. Alternatively, a sine-wave AC voltage is used having a frequency higher than 500 Hz.

Optical fiber fusion splicing method

Growing community of inventors

Mito, Japan

Norio Kashima