Design and processing of high-density single-mode fiber arrays for imaging and parallel interferometer applications

摘要

The design and fabrication procedures for implementing a high-density (16-μm center spacing) single-mode fiber (SMF) array are described. The specific application for this array is a parallel optical coherence tomography system for endoscopic imaging. We obtained fiber elements by etching standard single-mode SMF-28 fibers to a diameter of 14-15 μm. We equalized 1-m lengths of fiber to within 1 mm by using a fiber interferometer setup, and we describe a method for packaging arrays with as many as 100 fibers.