Low-stress coupling of electrooptical device to optical fiber

Abstract

An electrooptical device, such as a semiconductor laser, and an optical fiber are packaged together in light coupling alignment using an electrolytic technique that avoids heat-induced stresses that commonly result from joining methods that employ welding, soldering, or catalytic adhesive compositions. The particular technique of this invention also avoids the need to encapsulate the electrooptical device within an index matching gel to protect it from the electrolytic plating solution thereby enabling optical devices such as lenses, isolators, filters, etc, to be incorporated in the package. The electrooptical device is mounted onto a common metallic base and the optical device is mounted within the bore of a tubular metallic support member. This support member is affixed to the base by means of nodes of a flexible conductive gel and is positioned relative to the electrooptical device for maximum light coupling between the device and the optical fiber within the support member. A non-metallic bottomless container is disposed on the base over the support member and the nodes of conductive gel (but not over the electrooptical device) to form a liquid-tight interior region for containing a low-stress electrolytic plating solution. The base, the nodes of conductive gel and the portion of the fiber support member within the container form the cathode in a plating circuit and are plated together to fix the alignment of the device and the fiber at its optimum coupling position.