Abstract

In connectors the fiber-to-ferrule end faces are generally not flat. Therefore a controlled end-face deformation is used to achieve physical contact. However, an insufficient deformation may cause small core-to-core separations to exist even when fiber-to-ferrule physical contact is achieved. This paper theoretically investigates reflectance performance of connectors in the presence of such small core-to-core kinetics, which may be important in determining the intermateability and reliability of optical connectors. The results show that the connector reflectance performance is better than that at physical contact over a small range of core-to-core separations. The magnitude of this range increases with degradation (increase) in reflectance value.

© 1993 Optical Society of America