Optical irradiation method for fiber coupler fabrications

An optical irradiation method for high-speed fiber coupler fabrications without contamination is proposed. In optical fiber taper fabrications we found an interesting effect that fiber elongation is self-arrested although laser irradiation is continued. This is a typical effect in the optical irradiation method, but is not seen in the flame method or the thermal heating method. The “self-controlled fiber taper shape effect” is theoretically explained by considering thermal energy flows, and optical fiber couplers are fabricated using this effect. From our experiments, we show that optical fiber coupler fabrications at high-speed without contamination are possible using the optical irradiation method.