Abstract

The installation and maintenance of an optical-fiber transmission system will require that there be joints in the fiber. Joint insertion loss depends not only on parameters local to the joint, such as the fiber alignment, but also on system parameters, such as fiber length, joint location, fiber design, and light source. Considerable attention has been given in the literature to measurements¹ and theory² relating to misalignments. Comparatively little, however, has appeared on the rote of system parameters, although some authors have studied the effect of fiber length following a joint.^3,4 In the study summarized here, joint insertion loss was measured for graded- index fibers in a precision experiment in which parameters affecting joint performance were introduced in various combinations. The measurements relating loss to misalignments are of interest chiefly to splice and connector designers and will be reported elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of system parameters on joint loss.

© 1979 Optical Society of America