What Do You Know About The Fiber Optical Splitter?

Fiber optical splitter is one of the important passive devices in the fiber optical link. It is an fiber optical tandem device with multiple input ends and multiple output ends.

 

 

1. Structure of Fiber Optical Splitter

The fiber optical splitter can be divided into two types: fused tapered type and planar wave-guide type according to the principle of spectroscopy. The fused tapered method is to disturb two fiber optical, whose coating layer are removed, in a certain way, melt them under high temperature heating, and stretch to both sides at the same time, and finally forms a special wave-guide structure in the form of a double cone in the heating zone. By controlling the twisting angle of the fiber optical and the length of stretching, different splitting ratios can be obtained. Finally, the taper area is cured with a curing glue on the quartz substrate and inserted into the stainless copper tube, which is the fiber optical splitter. In this production process, the thermal expansion coefficient of the cured adhesive is inconsistent with the quartz substrate and the stainless steel tube, and the degree of thermal expansion and contraction is not consistent when the ambient temperature changes. This situation is easy to cause damage to the fiber optical splitter, especially when the splitter is placed in the plain, which is also the main reason why the fiber optical splitter is easily damaged.

 

 

2. The Working Principle of Fiber Optical Splitter

The products of fused taper types are formed by fusing two or more fiber optical on the side. The planar wave-guide type is a micro-optical component product, which uses photolithography technology to form an optical wave-guide on a dielectric or semiconductor substrate to achieve branch distribution function. The splitting principles of these two types are similar. They change the evanescent field between the fiber optical to couple with each other (coupling degree, coupling length) and change the fiber radius to achieve branching of different sizes. Conversely, they can also combine multiple optical signals into one signal, which is called a synthesizer. Fused taper fiber optical couplers have become the mainstream manufacturing technology in the market due to their simple manufacturing methods, low prices, easy connection with external optical fibers, and their resistance to mechanical vibration and temperature changes.

 

Like the coaxial cable transmission system, the optical network system also needs to couple, branch, and distribute optical signals, which requires an fiber optical splitter to achieve. The fiber optical splitter usually uses M × N to indicate that a splitter has M input terminals and N output terminals. The fiber optical splitters used in the optical CATV system are generally 1 × 2, 1 × 3 and the 1 × N optical splitters composed of them.

 

The fiber optical splitter used in the PON network can be expressed as M × N or M: N according to the specifications of power distribution. M represents the number of input fiber channels, and N represents the number of output fiber channels. In the FTTx system, M can be 1 or 2, and N can be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc.

 

 

3. Wrapper Method of Fiber Optical Splitter

The wrapper method of fiber optical splitters should be cost-effective, sturdy, and compact. The internal fiber optic of the equipment should ensure a certain radius to ensure that the coiled fiber is not damaged. All devices should be well fixed and provide sufficient space for management, connection, installation, maintenance, inspection and testing.