Polishing sheet equipped with nano-silica polishing particles, and polishing method and manufacturing method for optical fiber connector using polishing sheet

A method of manufacturing an optical fiber connector having optical fibers attached to a ferrule comprising:

• flat surface polishing for polishing an end face of an optical fiber ferrule assembly into a flat surface;
• protruding optical fibers to predetermined heights from the end face of the ferrule by preferentially polishing the end face of the ferrule of the optical fiber ferrule assembly formed by the flat surface polishing, resulting in optical fibers having recesses with an average depth d1 at their tip cores;
• polishing for reducing flaws at end portions of the optical fibers of the optical fiber ferrule assembly formed by the protruding, resulting in optical fibers having recesses with an average depth d2 at their tip cores;
• polishing to finish the optical fiber ferrule assembly formed by the polishing for reducing flaws;
• wherein the polishing to finish is performed by moving the optical fiber ferrule assembly and a flocked polishing sheet relative to each other while the optical fiber ferrule assembly and the flocked polishing sheet are disposed opposite to each other and while the optical fibers having the core recesses are inserted into a flocked portion of the flocked polishing sheet, the fibers which constitute the flocked portion having silica particles attached to the surfaces of the fibers so as to reduce an average depth of the recesses to be lower than the average depth d1 and/or d2 in the polishing to finish, the silica particles having an average particle diameter in the range of 0.01 μm to 0.1 μm.