A new type of demountable optical device for coupling single-mode planar waveguides to a multifiber array using passive alignment

A novel demountable optical device is developed for coupling single-mode waveguides to a multifiber array using passive alignment. This device is fabricated by forming V-grooves on a waveguide chip and precisely molding both end portions of the chip. The 1/spl times/8 coupling device exhibits a low insertion loss of 10.7 dB and a small loss change of /spl plusmn/0.2 dB for 100 reconnections.