Fabrication of a V-groove on the optical fiber connector using a miniaturized machine tool

As optical communication is being substituted for telecommunication, the demand of a large variety of fiber optic components is increasing. V-groove substrates, one of the module components, are used to connect optical fibers to optical planar circuits and to arrange fibers. Their applications are multi-channel optical connectors and optical wave-guide fiber coupling, etc. Because these substrates are a critical part of the splitter in a multiplexer and a multi-fiber connector, precise and reliable fabrication process is required. For precisely aligning core pitch between fibers, machined core pitch tolerance should be within submicrons. In general, these are produced by state-of-the-art micro-fabrication. However, most of the process equipment is very expensive. Also, it is difficult to change the process line for custom designs to meet specific requirements using various materials. For various design specifications such as different values of the V angle and for low-priced products, the fabrication method should be flexible and low cost. To achieve this goal, a miniaturized machine tool with high accuracy positioning was developed. It is shown in this present work, that this cutting process can be efficiently used to produce V-groove subtracts.