Splicing fluoride glass and silica optical fibers

摘要

Splicing fluoride glass fibers and silica fibers is a critical point for manufacturing all fibered laser modules. As these materials are extremely different, various problems must be considered: thermal, expansion, mechanical, chemical. Reliability and power handling make priority concerns. We report splices made on a 200/220 multimode silica fiber and a double clad 15/250/290 ZBLAN fiber. Splices are proof tested at 300 g tensile strength. No damage is observed after thermal cycling from -30 ℃ to 85 ℃, at 40 % RH during 24 hours. Typical optical splice loss is about 0.2 dB. They withstand 220 W input power at 976 nm without any damage and drastic temperature increasing.