Michael J Vince

US Patent:

57727201, Jun 30, 1998

Filed:

Mar 17, 1997

Appl. No.:

8/819453

Inventors:

John S. Szalay - Corona del Mar CA
Michael R. Vince - Thousand Oaks CA
Joseph A. Wysocki - Malibu CA
Stephen W. McCahon - Coralville IA

Assignee:

Raytheon Company - Lexington MA

International Classification:

C03B 3715

US Classification:

65387

Abstract:

The end face (32) of the optical fiber (24) of a fiber optical terminal (10) is finished by installing the fiber in a terminal ferrule (18), cleaving an end of the fiber close to the end face (54) of the ferrule, and heating the cleaved fiber end face so as to soften its end face and cause it to assume a smooth, rounded configuration. The heating is accomplished, for a glass fiber, by application of the beam of a carbon dioxide laser (60) to the optical fiber end face. The heat softened end face assumes a smooth, rounded configuration that minimizes back reflection. A system including a laser (105), shutter (102), beam expander (108) and parabolic mirror (110) heats the fiber end face that is positioned at the parabola faces by a three axis manipulator (156,158) and holder (152). Orthogonal viewing systems (126, 142) enable visual monitoring of the process.