Injection molded plastic multifiber connector realizing physical contact with fiber elasticity

We have proposed and demonstrated a fiber physical contact connector. This connector aligns multiple bare fibers in microholes individually and realizes physical contact by using the buckling force of the fibers themselves. The prototype is injection molded plastic and has a size of 7/spl times/24/spl times/3 mm for 8 fibers at a 0.25-mm pitch. The average insertion and return losses for single-mode fibers are under 0.2 dB and over 60 dB. These losses are stable in environmental tests.