Precisely Molded Plastic V-Grooved Alignment Parts for Multi-Port Optical Devices

摘要

Precise plastic V-grooved alignment parts for connecting single-mode optical fiber arrays to multi-port opti- cal devices were successfully molded with a thermosetting resin by using a highly productive injection molding technique. The molded parts are two types of V-grooved blocks that are compat- ible with the size of optical devices having eight or twelve optical ports. Their dimensional accuracy must be better than 1 m over the whole length of the V-grooves for efficient optical coupling. This strict requirement was satisfied using precisely processed molding tools with a specially chosen resin under optimum mold- ing conditions. The feasibility of the optical alignment parts was assured by an evaluation of their loss characteristics and reliabil- ity in coupling single-mode fibers to 1×8 power splitters, where the average optical loss was 0.2 dB and the change in loss was less than ±0.2 dB under a temperature cycling test and also under a damp heat test. These results show that plastic molded parts can be used for precise coupling of single-mode optical devices, and will lead to a breakthrough in innovation in the field of optical packaging.