title: Fabrication of asperical lensed optical fibers with an electro-static pulling of SU-8 photoresist.
abstract: A novel method is presented for fabricating lensed optical fibers for enhancing the coupling efficiency between high-power IR laser diodes and gradient-index fibers (GIF). SU-8 photoresist is attached to the fiber tip by means of surface tension forces and a cone-shaped micro-lens structure is then formed using an electrostatic pulling method. It is shown that micro-lenses with various radii of curvature can be easily formed by tuning the intensity of the electric field used in the pulling process. Experimental results show that for a laser diode chip with a central wavelength of 1310 nm, a coupling efficiency of 78% can be obtained using a lensed optical fiber with a radius of curvature of 48 μm. By contrast, the coupling efficiency of a traditional flat-end fiber is just 40%. Overall, the fabrication method proposed in this study provides a rapid and low-cost solution for the mass production of high-quality lensed optical fibers.
authors: Department of Mechanical and Electro-mechanical Engineering, National Sun Yat-sen University, 804 Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors: Chun-Ching
authors: CC
authors: Wu
authors: Yi-Dun
authors: YD
authors: Tseng
authors: Su-Ming
authors: SM
authors: Kuo
authors: Che-Hsin
authors: CH
authors: Lin