Microfabrication method for optical components

A polishing method of making a recessed fiber, non-contact, multi-fiber optical connector at an end of an optical fiber cable, the recessed fiber non-contact, multi-fiber optical connector having plural optical fibers positioned in a ferrule block, comprising:

• providing an optical fiber ferrule block, the ferrule block including guide pins or guide holes to align multi-fiber connectors;
• inserting plural optical fibers in separate through-holes in the ferrule block, the ferrule block having a ferrule block front surface, each through-hole being sized to accept and align an optical fiber, each of the plural optical fibers being part of a multi-fiber optical fiber cable that does not significantly outgas in a vacuum deposition chamber;
• affixing the plural optical fibers in the ferrule to form a fiber-ferrule-cable assembly;
• performing differential polishing of the plural optical fibers and the ferrule block front surface, so that a smooth fiber facet and a ferrule block contact surface are formed, and a recess between a fiber facet and the ferrule block contact surface is formed such that the created recess ranges from 0.1 micron to 10 microns;
• applying a multi-layer dielectric antireflection coating using a method selected from ion beam sputtering or ion-assisted e-beam deposition under a vacuum deposition condition to the recessed fiber facet and to the ferrule block contact surface such that the multi-layer dielectric antireflection coating, after application, is a two-level antireflection coating having a first coating level on the front surface of the ferrule block and a second coating level on the polished surface of the plural optical fibers, the first coating level being higher than the second coating level such that when the first coating level multi-layer dielectric antireflection coating on the front surface of the ferrule block contacts another ferrule block during connector mating, the second coating level on the plural optical fibers does not contact mating fibers to form a multi-fiber non-contact optical connector.