Various embodiments and methods related to an optical fiber alignment system are provided herein. The optical fiber alignment system includes a controller and a rotation stage having a central axis, a first end, and a second end. The central axis extends from the first end to the second end of the rotation stage. The rotation stage includes an optical fiber channel extending from the first end of the rotation stage to the second end of the rotation stage and may be operationally coupled with the controller. The rotation stage is configured to rotate about the central axis of the rotation stage. The optical fiber alignment system includes a light source positioned to emit light onto the optical fiber channel at an oblique angle from the central axis of the rotation stage. The optical fiber alignment system includes an image sensor positioned adjacent to the second end of the rotation stage.

Provided is an optical fiber ribbon capable of achieving higher density and reduction in diameter and accurately placing optical fibers in V-shape grooves in a fusion machine without failure. The optical fiber ribbon 1 includes three or more of optical fibers 2 arranged in parallel and connecting portions 3 connecting adjacent two optical fibers 2 together, the connecting portions 3 being intermittently provided in each of a ribbon longitudinal direction and a ribbon width direction. The connecting portions 3 are each formed in such a manner as to fill resin into a gap S formed between adjacent two optical fibers 2, and both surfaces of the respective connecting portions 3 are each formed into a recess having a concave shape curved toward a center of the gap S to separate from lines 4,5 each connecting contact points of the optical fibers 2 when being placed on a horizontal surface.

Provided is an optical fiber ribbon capable of achieving higher density and reduction in diameter and accurately placing optical fibers in V-shape grooves in a fusion machine without failure. The optical fiber ribbon 1 includes three or more of optical fibers 2 arranged in parallel and connecting portions 3 connecting adjacent two optical fibers 2 together, the connecting portions 3 being intermittently provided in each of a ribbon longitudinal direction and a ribbon width direction. The connecting portions 3 are each formed in such a manner as to fill resin into a gap S formed between adjacent two optical fibers 2, and both surfaces of the respective connecting portions 3 are each formed into a recess having a concave shape curved toward a center of the gap S to separate from lines 4,5 each connecting contact points of the optical fibers 2 when being placed on a horizontal surface.

Provided is an optical fiber holder comprising a holder body and a cover. The holder body has an accommodation section capable of accommodating a plurality of optical fibers. The holder body or the cover has at least one ridge which can be disposed within the accommodation section. When the cover is closed over the holder body, a plurality of sections which can parallelly accommodate the plurality of optical fibers are parallelly formed by the inner surface of the accommodation section, the lower surface of the cover, and the ridge.

The present disclosure relates generally to a method for processing an optical fiber. The coating is stripped from the cladding of the optical fiber using a stripping process. Direct heat is applied to the first side of the optical fiber and is not applied to the second side of the optical fiber. Then, the optical fiber is inserted into a fiber alignment structure with the second side of the optical fiber engaging a fiber alignment feature of the alignment structure. The first side of the optical fiber does not engage the fiber alignment feature.

A method of forming a splice to join two optical fibres comprises: providing two optical fibres, at least one of which is a hollow core optical fibre; aligning an end of one of the optical fibres with an end of the other optical fibre such that longitudinal axes of the two optical fibres are substantially along a same line and the ends of the optical fibres are spaced apart; performing a prefusion stage (S1) comprising: applying an electric arc proximate the ends of the optical fibres in order to soften the material of the ends; moving the ends of the optical fibres together to make contact and then exceed the contact by an overlap distance to form a fused portion in which the ends are fused together; and performing at least one pushing stage (S2), each pushing stage comprising: implementing a cooling period during which no electrical arc is applied; at the end of the cooling period, applying an electrical arc to the fused portion to soften the material of the fused ends; and pushing the fused ends of the optical fibres further together.

A fiber cleaving tool includes a cleaving component, a first mounting nest at a first end of the cleaving component, and a second mounting nest at an opposite second end of the cleaving component. Each mounting nest is configured to hold and orient a mounting clip to direct one or more optical fibers towards the cleaving component. The orientation of the mounting nests of the cleaving tool may correspond to the orientation of the mounting nests of a splice tool.

A device for realizing the splicing of an array fiber and a large-size quartz end cap comprises a carbon dioxide laser, a light splitter, a light beam shaper, a high reflectivity mirror, an image detection module, an array fiber and a carrier thereof, a large-size quartz end cap and a carrier thereof, a stepping motor, a thermodetector, and a computer; a laser beam emitted by the carbon dioxide laser is divided into two light beams through a light splitter, after the two light beams respectively pass through the beam shaper and the high reflectivity mirror, two strip-shaped light spots with uniform power density are integrally formed to heat a splicing face of the large-size quartz end cap, a uniform temperature field of a target splicing area is achieved through indirect heating and heat conduction.

A method for aligning multicore fiberS that has three or more cores disposed on a circumference centered on a central axis of a clad includes: capturing a first set of images of side surfaces of each of the pair of multicore fibers before and after rotating each of the pair of multicore fibers by P° a number of times (N) rounded up so that N=360/P; determining, for each of the pair of multicore fibers, a similarity between an image of the first set of images before a rotation by P° and an image of the first set of images after the rotation by P° for each of the N times the multicore fiber is rotated by P°; determining specific relative rotation positions of the pair of multicore fibers in which a cross-correlation becomes highest; and rotating at least one of the pair of multicore fibers.

An optical fiber alignment tool includes a fiber aligner that includes: separators that assort optical fibers; and fiber insertion portions each disposed between a respective pair of the separators and that align the optical fibers in an alignment direction in a predetermined order when the optical fibers are inserted into the fiber insertion portion; and a fiber holding portion that includes a mount surface on which the optical fibers are mounted. The fiber aligner and the fiber holding portion are relatively movable in the alignment direction of the optical fibers.