Process for the fiber end facet termination of Polymer Optical Fibers using Halogen light

Polymer Optical Fibers (POF), as a very cost effective data transmission medium, are nowadays an excellent alternative to copper cables and glass fibers especially for short distances up to 100 m. With the further application of POF and the increasing piece numbers, an automation of the manufacturing of POF cables is strongly recommended. The critical manufacturing step is thereby the termination of the fiber end facet. The higher the data rates are and the mechanical and thermal stress to the fiber is, the higher the quality requirements to the fiber end facet are. The existing end facet termination processes, such as cutting with knife, polishing, Hot-Plate or the use of a matching-gel are either unsuitable for an automated mass production or do not fulfill the high quality requirements. Therefore new, fast and cost effective processes for the end facet termination with a very high end facet quality have to be developed to widely establish the POF technology. This paper describes a new process for the fiber end termination using halogen light, developed at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation. A further aspect, described in this paper, is the integration of a process monitoring for the fiber end facet termination, which guarantees a constant, high and reproducible end facet quality.