Types and Applications of Lensed Optical Fiber

PHOTONSTREAM lensed optical fiber is a type of specialty fiber that forms a small lens (such as a spherical lens or conical lens) at one end of the fiber through processes such as sintering or grinding, thus making the fiber's light spot smaller, improving coupling efficiency, or achieving specific optical functions.

Types of Lensed Optical Fiber

Spherical Lensed Optical Fiber

• Application Areas: Medical endoscopy, semiconductor laser coupling, ultra-miniature device packaging, optoelectronic conversion devices, optical sensing, optical test platforms, CMM probes (widely used in medicine, military, public security, intelligence, integrated optics, optical communication, optical computing).

  
  

• Features: Small size, short optical path, lightweight, easy mass production and packaging; simple coupling process, good reproducibility, high coupling efficiency.

Conical Fiber

• Application Areas: Coupling of LD, DFB, SLD lasers, VCSELs with circular or near-circular output beam cross-sections; laser microsurgery and micro-illumination in medicine.

  
  

• Features: Grinding the fiber front end according to requirements to have a tapered surface with a certain angle, and further grinding the tapered front end to have a spherical surface with a certain curvature radius; fiber metallization upon customer request.

Segmented Fiber

By splicing different types of fiber segments (such as coreless fiber, GRIN multimode fiber, etc.), specific optical functions can be achieved, such as medical imaging.

Manufacturing Process of Lensed Optical Fiber

Sintering Method

Softens the glass at the fiber end through high temperatures to form a lens shape, suitable for making spherical lensed optical fiber.

Grinding Method

Uses precision grinding equipment and tools to grind the fiber end face to form the required lens shape, suitable for making high-precision lensed optical fiber like ball lens fiber.

Chemical Etching Method

Uses chemical etchants to etch the fiber end face, forming the required lens shape, suitable for mass production in lensed fiber manufacturers.

Thermal Stretching Method

Forms a conical structure by heating and stretching the fiber, suitable for making conical fiber.

Application Fields of Lensed Optical Fiber

Optical Communication

Used to improve fiber coupling efficiency, reduce coupling loss, and enhance the performance of optical communication systems.

Laser Processing

In fields such as laser cutting, welding, etc., lensed optical fiber is used for focusing the laser beam to achieve high-precision processing.

Medical Imaging

Specialized lensed optical fibers such as segmented fibers are important in medical imaging fields like endoscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Sensing Technology

Lensed optical fiber can also be used to make fiber optic sensors for high-precision measurement of various physical quantities.