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US 2004/0175091 A1Published application
Apparatus for fabricating a multi-fiber polarization-maintaining fiber assembly
AssigneeTotoku Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsMasanori Nonomura, Hidetoku Iida, Atsushi Koyama
Life of this patent
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Abstract
While clamped by a clamping jig 100, polarization-maintaining fiber cables 11 and 12 are automatically oriented with an orientation adjusting unit 200 and then heated by a heater 105 for curing thermoset resins.
Claims4
A method of fabricating a multi-fiber polarization-maintaining fiber assembly comprising:
- (1) a cover removal step for removing covers a few centimeters at one end from a plurality of polarization-maintaining fiber cables with difference of a few millimeters;
- (2) an assembly step for inserting the polarization-maintaining fiber cables into an insertion hole of a holder tube, holding them integrally with their exposed fiber portions arranged abreast at proximal end, and sealing the leading end of the insertion holes of the holder tube with a thermoset resin which is relatively high in the viscosity;
- (3) an adhesive filling step for filling the inner space of a multi-fiber ferrule with a thermoset resin which is relative low in the viscosity;
- (4) an fiber cable insertion step for inserting the polarization-maintaining fiber cables assembled integral with the holder tube into the inner space of the multi-fiber ferrule, and inserting thier exposed fiber portions into corresponding fiber holes of the multi-fiber ferrule;
- (5) an orientation adjustment step for, while clamping the multi-fiber ferrule with a clamping jig not to be turned, rotating each of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables to determine its orientation;
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- (6) an adhesive curing step for heating up the multi-fiber ferrule remaining clamped by the clamping jig to cure the thermoset resins.
4 more elements
An apparatus for fabricating a multi-fiber polarization-maintaining fiber assembly comprising:
- a clamping jig and an orientation adjusting unit, the claiming jig including a ferrule clamping means for clamping a multi-fiber ferrule so as not to be rotated and an fiber cable clamping means for clamping polarization-maintaining fiber cables so as to be rotated, the orientation adjusting unit including an imaging means for imaging a leading end of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables held in the multi-fiber ferrule clamped by the clamping jig, an image processing means for identifying the orientation of each of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables based on each image of the leading end of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables, and an orientation adjustment controlling means for controllably driving the fiber cable clamping means to axially rotate each of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables for automatically adjusting the orientation of each of the polarization-maintaining fiber cables.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.