Optical Fan-Out Adapter for Compact Packaging of Components by a Jacket Removing System with a CO2 Laser

A new optical fan-out adapter is proposed and fabricated by applying the jacket removing system with a CO2 laser. The fan-out adapter has both the multi-fiber connection function and the fiber separating function for single-fiber connections. In order to remove the jacket of a fiber ribbon to connectorize and fabricate the fan-out adapter, the optimum conditions of the laser power P and the scan speed V are clarified for the jacket removing.. Based on the optimum conditions, the fan-out adapter was fabricated successfully. Individual fibers could be taken out from the MT connector of the fan-out adapter. The connection losses of the fabricated fan-out adapter were comparable with the values of commercially available MT connectors and SC connectors. The length of the fabricated fan-out adapter was 27 mm, including 2 MT connectors. This result clarifies that the size of the connection with a fan-out can be reduced dramatically by the proposed fan-out adapter.