EXPANDED-BEAM FIBER CONNECTIONS WITH ANTIREFLECTION PATTERNED FOCUSING ELEMENTS

摘要

An expanded-beam fiber connector includes an optical fiber having an end and a focusing element disposed to receive light from the fiber end. At least one side of the focusing element is provided with an anti-reflection (AR) structured surface. The use of focusing elements with AR structured surfaces may be expanded to multi-fiber expanded-beam connectors that use arrays of focusing elements and an alignment block to align the ends of the fibers with the focusing elements. The focusing element having an AR structured surface can be made in a single step molding process.