Optical attenuator and its manufacture

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To reduce the cost and size of the optical attenuator by removing part of the coating of an optical fiber and exposing the element wire consisting of the core and clad, heating the element wire part up to temperature close to its softening point while applying external force and thus forming an optical attenuation part. CONSTITUTION:Part of the coating of the optical fiber 1 is removed to expose element wire, the fiber 1 is fixed by a clamper 11 with the element wire part 1a opposite a burner 10, and one end of the fiber 1 is connected to a light source 14 while the other is connected to a photodetection unit 15. When the burner 10 heats the element wire part 1a to temperature close to its softening point, the element wire enters a softening start and when external force such as tensile force and swinging force is made to operate at this time, a fine crack is generated over the entire area of the heated part, so that the crack generates loss of light. The total quantity of the crack, i.e. an attenuation factor is controlled with the heating time and external force and the optical attenuation part 1b with a desired attenuation factor is obtained. Consequently, the need for adjusting operation is eliminated without requiring any optical element and the inexpensive, small-sized optical attenuator is obtained.

Inventors

• 👤 Hironori Yamamoto
• 👤 Toshiji Takei
• 👤 Naoki Kawada

Bibliographic Details