The Radiation of Light from Laser Machined Taps on Optical Fibers

Abstract

Micron-scale radiative taps can be made on optical fibers by etching a cut on the cladding using the CO₂ laser ablative chemical etching process. Such taps can be used for making varieties of optical signal processors, fiber optic sensors and communication networks. The propagation of the optical fields along the fiber and their scattering at the discontinuity introduced by the tap are simulated using the finite-difference time-domain technique. The change in the radiated fields are studied for various values of tap shapes and tap sizes. The optical field visualization package is of great help in designing a tap for an application that requires a radiated beam of a specific pattern and a given amount of radiated power.

Indexing terms:

• Fiber optic tap
• Fiber optic sensors
• Laser ablative chemical etching (LACE)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anjan K Ghosh

Anjan Kumar Ghosh received BTech degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering in 1979 from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the MS from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1980 and PhD from Carnègie-Mellon University in 1984, both in Electrical Engineering. His PhD dissertation was on the design and performance analysis of optical linear algebra processors. After the PhD he was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Allentown. He taught in the Department of Electrical and Computer at the University of Iowa, Iowa City from 1986 to 1993. At present he is Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was the Head of the Centre for Laser Technology, an interdisciplinary research center, and the Laser Technology Programme at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur from 1995–98. He was a visiting faculty of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for two years. His research interests are in the areas of packaging optoelectronic Systems, optical sensors, fiber optics, and optical signal processing. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, OSA, and SPIE, a senior member of IEEE, and a fellow of IETE and Opt Soc of India. He has published more than hundred papers in technical journals and proceedings. He served as the topical editor of the area of optoelectronics for the Journal of Research, IETE. He is involved in various organizational activitiers of the local chapters of IEEE, IETE and Opt Soc of India.