Optical Fiber Coating
AssigneeOFS Fitel, LLC
InventorEric J. Leichter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A length of optical fiber has a core, a cladding layer surrounding the core and a coating layer applied over the cladding layer along the fiber for protecting the fiber. The coating layer is applied so that gaps of a certain width are defined intermittently in the coating layer over the length of fiber. The gaps in the coating layer have a depth D that is set to expose the cladding layer enough within the gaps so that the exposed cladding layer and the surrounded core can be fusion spliced or terminated with minimal if any required stripping of the coating layer off of the cladding layer.
Claims7
1-8. (canceled)
A method of splicing an optical fiber, comprising:
- producing an optical fiber having:
- a core;
- a cladding layer surrounding the core, wherein the cladding layer has a first outer diameter (O.D.);
- and
- a coating layer surrounding the cladding layer along the length of the fiber for protecting the fiber, wherein the coating layer has a second O.D. greater than the first O.D. of the cladding layer;
- applying the coating layer so that gaps of a certain width W are defined intermittently in the coating layer over the length of the fiber, wherein the gaps in the coating layer have a depth D determined to expose the cladding layer and the surrounded core of the fiber substantially over the width of the gaps;
- and
- splicing the cladding layer and the core of the fiber as exposed over the width of a given one of the gaps with another optical fiber, or terminating the cladding layer and the core of the fiber as exposed over the width of a given one of the gaps in an optical connector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.