American Telephone & Telegraph Co., At&t Bell Laboratories

At&t Technologies, Inc.

American Telephone and Telegraph Company, At&t Technologies, Inc.

Ralph A Treder, Jr

John Mark Palmquist

Robert P Lyons

Thomas L Williford, Jr

Joseph S Kovalchick

Susan S Sachs

A biconic connector (40) includes two plugs (44-44) each of which terminates a single fiber optical cable (55) and each of which includes a truncated conically shaped end portion (50). The connector also includes an alignment sleeve having back-to-back conically shaped cavities each of which is adapted to receive an end portion of a plug. In order to minimize loss through the connection, it becomes important for the centroid of the cross-sectional area of a light beam in the end face of the plug to be coincident with the axis of revolution of the conically shaped surface of plug. This is accomplished by holding the plug in a fixture such that its end portion is exposed and the fixture adapted to be turned about an axis of rotation. Images of a light beam launched into the optical fiber are acquired in a plane through the end face of the plug. From these, the axis of rotation is determined and adjustments made to cause the centroid of the acquired images to become substantially coincident with the axis of rotation of that plane. Subsequently, the molded plug is reconfigured such as by grinding to cause the centroid of the cross-sectional area of the light beam in the end face of the plug to be disposed along the axis of revolution of the conical surface of the reconfigured plug.

Methods of and apparatus for reconfiguring optical fiber connector

A biconic connector includes two plugs (44--44) each of which terminates a single fiber optical cable (55) and each of which includes a conically shaped end portion (50). The connector also includes an alignment sleeve having back-to-back conically shaped cavities each of which is adapted to receive an end portion of a plug. In order to minimize loss through a connection, it becomes important for the axis of the end portion of the core of the optical fiber in the conically shaped end portion of the plug to be coincident with the axis of revolution of the conically shaped end portion. This is accomplished by holding the plug in a fixture such that its conically shaped end portion is exposed and the fixture adapted to be turned about an axis of rotation. Images of light launched into the optical fiber are acquired in two planes at a plurality of positions spaced apart along a reference axis. The center of rotation of the turntable and the relative angle of the light emitted from the end portion of the plug are resolved from these images. A device (180) is positioned over an end of the conically shaped portion of the plug and used to determine the angle between the axis of revolution of the plug and the axis of rotation of the fixture. The direction of the axis of the fiber core is then determined and the fixture is oriented to cause the axis of the fiber core to be parallel to the axis of rotation. Adjustments are then made to cause the center of the images and the center of the fiber core to be coincident with the axis of rotation. Subsequently, the end portion of the plug is reconfigured such as by grinding to cause the axis of revolution of the reconfigured end portion and the axis of the optical fiber core to be substantially coincident.

Growing community of inventors

Mercer County, NJ, United States of America

Ralph A Treder, Jr