All-Glass Optical-Fiber Tapes

All-Glass Optical-Fiber Tapes By D. L. BISBEE and P. W. SMITH (Manuscript received September 18, 1974) We 'propose and demonstrate a new approach to the problem of splicing optical fibers in a fiber cable. The optical fiber cable subgroups (tapes) are made in such a way that the relative positions of the optical fibers are accurately maintained. By using glass as a rigid matrix material in which the optical fibers are held, we demonstrate that a simple scoring and stressing technique can be used to simultaneously prepare all the fiber ends for splicing. The potential of optical fibers as transmission media for optical communications systems has stimulated much work on the various problems t h a t need to be overcome before a practical system can be built. One of these problems involves the development of techniques for connecting and splicing these fibers and fiber cables. Although several laboratory techniques for splicing fibers and groups of fibers with low splice losses have now been developed, they are all relatively complex techniques t h a t require operations of high precision and are thus difficult to carry out in the field. In this paper, we propose a different approach to the splicing problem. Linear arrays ("tapes") of optical fibers have been suggested as building blocks for optical fiber cables, 1 and a number of techniques for producing plastic-bonded tapes have been investigated. 2 We propose here a technique for fabricating a precision all-glass optical fiber tape t h a t would have considerable advantages with regard to splicing operations.