What is optical fiber splitting?
Simply put, splitting optical fiber is the art of cutting glass optical fibers with a perfect angle of 90 ° with a smooth surface. This is not as easy as it sounds.
Why do we need to cut the fiber at a 90 ° angle? Well, this is required when we want to combine two optical fibers together. Splicing with an optical fiber always requires that the fiber tips have a smooth end surface perpendicular to the fiber axis. The quality of cleavage is very important to determine the loss of splicing splicing. This is especially true for special fibers, such as erbium-doped fibers and dispersion-compensated fibers.
How is this achieved with fiber optic mites?
The basic idea of splitting an optical fiber is to first scratch the fiber with a very stiff diamond edge cutting tool, which causes a fairly large surface crack, then the fiber bonding device applies tensile stress to the fiber, which causes the crack to quickly expand through the cross section the fibers. Some other fiber releasers first apply tensile stress and then scratch the fiber with a tool for cutting the diamond edge.
How does a fiber cross section look like after splitting fibers?
After splitting, the cross section of the fiber usually consists of three areas: the mirror area, the fog area and the break-in area. The mirror region is first created while the crack propagates through the fiber. We want the area of the mirror to be as large as possible. The ideal fiber splitting will be a 100% mirror area, resulting in minimal splicing loss of splicing.
But in fact, as the crack spreads more, multiple fronts of tracks are produced close to the end of the splitting, and this region is called the cracking area. The breaking area is a rough surface that will cause poor fusion welding. We never want a hacking area to exist.
The mist area is the transition area between the mirror area and the hacking area.
Factors affecting the quality of fiber splitting
There are two main factors that mainly determine the quality of fiber splitting: the size of the initial crack and the applied tensile stress. In these two factors, the applied tensile stress is essential.
Ideally, the tensile stress should be low enough for the crack to propagate, and the area of the mirror to occupy the entire cross section of the fiber. When there is an unacceptable amount of a hacking area, almost 100% of the time, you must first adjust the tensile strength of the fiber.
But, on the other hand, too low a voltage can cause problems. The main problem is the splitting of the oblique fiber instead of the perpendicular 90% cut. Fiber splitting is another culprit causing poor fusion welding in addition to splitting with too much a cracking area.
Another problem caused by too low tensile stress is that a large initial crack is required for cutting. This large initial crack in itself can be the cause of poor splicing.
High-precision mite fiber manufacturers
A wide variety of fiber-optic chipping is now available, ranging from high-precision clipper for flooring and laboratory use to low-cost field fiber trap for use in splicing fields. Major suppliers include AFL Fujikura, Fitel, Tyco / AMP, Sumitomo, Corning Cable Systems and others.
