Abstract
Cleanliness of optical connectors is considered as one of the basic requirements for successful operation of photonic networks. It is common practice to clean connectors before assembly, test and use, since contamination of optical surfaces degrades device performance and causes data errors. A minimum level of cleanliness for single mode optical connector and jumper assemblies has been defined in the Telcordia Technologies Generic Requirements.1 Other leading optoelec-tronics industry manufacturers have provided specifications and important guidelines for cleanliness, notably those from Lucent Technologies and Agilent Technologies.2,3 Tests for assessing the performance of connector assemblies under severe dust conditions is part of the Materials and Environmental section described in.1 The results of such contamination tests have been discussed by Madge and Wisenden.4 It should be noted that the end-face of the connector needs to be extremely clean to maintain reflectances of better than –60 dB.5 It has been shown that scratches to the end-face of the connector resulted in higher reflectance.6 In this investigation our primary concern was the sources of contamination, the mechanism of contaminant transfer onto the critical optical surfaces, as well as influence of contamination/scratches on system performance (BER test). Some practical recommendations to eliminate the need for cleaning and inspection of incoming component optical surfaces have been included.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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