Design and performance of an angled physical contact type multifiber connector

An angled, physical contact type multifiber connector is developed on the basis of a structural design which enables direct fiber endface contact between multifiber arrays. The direct contact is achieved by utilizing the elastic nature of a ferrule material under compressive force. The fabricated connector provides a low insertion loss of 0.2 dB and a high return loss of 58.8 dB without index-matching. This connector is used in the successful development of push-on type and backpanel type 16-fiber connectors with a low insertion loss of 0.25 dB and a high return loss of 58.0 dB for future subscriber networks.