New Single-Fiber Cleaving Techni ue with Simple Mechanism for Mechanical Splice Type Field Mountable Single-mode Optical Fiber Connector

摘要

We have developed a novel technique for cleaving a single optical fiber using a cleaver with a simple body structure and a plastic blade with diamond abrasive. Because the body and blade can both be plastic molded, our approach can realize optical fiber cleavers that are far less expensive than conventional cleavers with precise mechanisms. We confirmed experimentally that our fabricated cleaver obtained fiber endfaces with inclinations of less than 5.7 degrees. We also found that mechanical splice type field mountable single-mode optical fiber connectors, which installed fibers with endface inclinations of less than 9 degrees, had a low average initial insertion loss of 0.28 dB and good heat cycle properties. We therefore confirmed that our cleaving technique could be utilized for mechanical splice type field mountable connectors.