Development of in-line controlled reflectance in fiber by fusion splicing

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The optical measurement and test systems used in the telecom industry to monitor and control the optical fibernetworks generally integrate internal low reflectance references. Existing solutions consist in using anattenuating fiber of defined attenuation (and thus of a certain length) coupled to the system to provide a knownreflectivity to be used as reference. The main drawback of this approach is its lack of compactness becausemultiple references of defined reflectance have to be integrated into one single portative and lightweightinstrument. The objective of this project is to replace the current method by a simpler approach leading to amore compact, light, stable and energy-effective device. The method of fabrication to be employed must besimple to be readily implemented in the industry and must rely on standard fabrication approaches andinstruments. Preliminary experiments carried out by EXFO have shown the potential of a novel fibercomponent fabrication process. Further studies will be conducted to better understand the underlyingmechanisms occurring within the fiber during its processing and correlate them with its performance and todevelop the fabrication process to enable a fine tuning of the fiber component targeted features.