Methods for laser welding one or more optical fibers to a substrate and assemblies are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method of bonding an optical fiber to a substrate having at least one film layer on a surface of the substrate includes directing a laser beam into the optical fiber disposed on the at least one film layer. The optical fiber has a curved surface that focuses the laser beam to a focused diameter. The method further includes melting, using the focused diameter laser beam, a material of the substrate to create a laser bond area between the optical fiber and the surface of the substrate. The laser bond area includes laser-melted material of the substrate that bonds the optical fiber to the substrate. The at least one film layer has an absorption of at least 15% at a wavelength of the focused diameter laser beam.

A method of manufacturing a multicore fiber includes: an initial-preform forming process of forming an initial preform by arranging in an array a plurality of core rods each including a core portion and a cladding portion formed around outer periphery of the core portion; and an optical fiber manufacturing process of manufacturing an optical fiber from the initial preform. Further, the core rods include a plurality of holes, and the core rods are arranged in a manner that one hole is arranged between two core portion adjacent to each other in the initial-preform forming process.

The present disclosure provides a method for knotting glass fibers and a spliced glass fiber bundle. The method for knotting glass fibers comprises the following steps of: equally dividing a glass fiber bundle A and a glass fiber bundle B that are to be connected by knotting into n strands, respectively, and marking the strands as A1-An and B1-Bn, respectively, wherein n is a natural number greater than or equal to 2; and, successively knotting and splicing the glass fiber strands A1-An and the glass fiber strands B1-Bn in one-to-one correspondence to form n spliced knots. The method for knotting glass fibers in the present disclosure is simple, easy to operate and applied to the knotting and splicing of various fiber bundles, and can effectively reduce the size of knots formed by knotting fiber bundles. Accordingly, the blockage, entanglement, stoppage and other phenomena during the production can be prevented, the smooth production is ensured, and it is advantageous for continuous production and quality of subsequent products.

Provided is a system for and a method of processing an optical fiber, such as tapering an optical fiber. The method includes receiving fiber parameters defining characteristics of an optical fiber, modeling an idealized fiber based on the fiber parameters to establish modeled data, and establishing processing parameters. A processing operation is performed on the optical fiber according to the processing parameters to produce a resultant fiber. Aspects of the resultant fiber are measured to establish measured data. The measured data and the modeled data are normalized to a common axis and a difference between the two is determined. The processing parameters are adjusted based on the differences.

A converter plate includes an array of optical fibers arranged axially parallel to each other. The optical fibers have optical properties selected to convert light from a light-emitting diode entering the optical fibers from one end of the array of optical fibers to light of a different wavelength exiting the fibers from another end of the array of optical fibers. The optical properties of some of the optical fibers differ from the optical properties of others of the optical fibers such that the light exiting the some of the optical fibers has a wavelength different from that of the light exiting the others of the optical fibers. The converter plate is manufactured by providing the optical fibers and combining the optical fibers into a bundle, the optical fibers being arranged axially parallel to each other. The bundle of optical fibers is drawn to attenuate the bundle of fibers into a secondary fiber having a reduced cross section. The secondary fiber is wafered into a converter plate that includes an array of the optical fibers arranged axially parallel to each other.

A method of forming an imaging fibre apparatus comprises arranging rods to form a plurality of stacks each comprising a respective plurality of rods, wherein: for each stack, the respective plurality of rods comprises rods having different core sizes, the rods of different core sizes being arranged in a selected arrangement, and the rods of different core sizes being arranged such that each stack has a respective selected shape; wherein the selected shape or shapes are such that the stacks stack together in a desired arrangement; the method further comprising: drawing each of the plurality of stacks; stacking together the plurality of drawn stacks together in the desired arrangement to form a further stack;drawing the further stack; and using the drawn further stack to form an imaging fibre apparatus, wherein the selected arrangement of the rods in each stack and the selected shape or shapes of the stacks are such that the further stack comprises a repeating pattern of rods of different core sizes.

The present invention discloses a fabrication method and use of a ?40 mm large-size and high-contrast fiber optic image inverter, belonging to the field of manufacturing of fiber optic imaging elements. The light-absorbing glass for preparing the ?40 mm large-size and high-contrast fiber optic image inverter consists of the following components in molar percentage: SiO.sub.2 60-69.9, Al.sub.2O.sub.3 1.0-10.0, B.sub.2O.sub.3 10.1-15.0, Na.sub.2O 1.0-8.0, K.sub.2O 3.0-10.0, MgO 0.1-1.0, CaO 0.5-5.0, ZnO 0-0.1, TiO.sub.2 0-0.1, ZrO.sub.2 0.1-1.0, Fe.sub.2O.sub.3 3.0-6.5, Co.sub.2O.sub.3 0.1-0.5, V.sub.2O.sub.5 0.51-1.5 and MoO.sub.3 0.1-1.0. The fiber optic image inverter has the advantages of low crosstalk of stray light, high resolution and high contrast.

Provided is a system for and a method of processing an optical fiber, such as tapering an optical fiber. The method includes receiving fiber parameters defining characteristics of an optical fiber, modeling an idealized fiber based on the fiber parameters to establish modeled data, and establishing processing parameters. A processing operation is performed on the optical fiber according to the processing parameters to produce a resultant fiber. Aspects of the resultant fiber are measured to establish measured data. The measured data and the modeled data are normalized to a common axis and a difference between the two is determined. The processing parameters are adjusted based on the differences.

A method of forming an imaging fibre apparatus comprises: arranging core rods 102 and cladding rods 104 to form at least one primary stack 100a, each primary stack 100a comprising a plurality of core rods 102 and cladding rods 104 arranged in a stack arrangement thereby to form a plurality of core regions within a cladding region; performing a drawing process to form a plurality of drawn stacks from the at least one primary stack; wherein the plurality of core rods and cladding rods are further arranged to have a selected shape such that the plurality of stacks stack together in a desired arrangement and wherein the stack arrangement comprises an at least partial outer layer of cladding rods thereby to provide separation between core regions of respective adjacent stacks when stacked in the desired arrangement, the method further comprising: stacking the plurality of drawn stacks together in the desired arrangement to form a further stack; drawing the further stack; and using the drawn further stack to form an imaging fibre apparatus.

A method for manufacturing a multicore optical fiber includes a step of forming ring-shaped closed-end holes to axially extend from a first end toward a second end of a glass rod; a step of heating bottom parts of the ring-shaped closed-end holes and softening center rods surrounded by the ring-shaped closed-end holes; a step of pulling out the center rods toward a side of the first end, forming columnar closed-end holes from the ring-shaped closed-end holes, and treating the glass rod as a cladding material; a connecting step of connecting a supporting pipe to the first end; an inserting step of inserting core rods into the columnar closed-end holes after the connecting step; and a drawing step of drawing the cladding material and the core rods while heating a portion near the second end and integrating the cladding material and the core rods after the inserting step.