Fiber Manufacturing, Cabling and Coupling

This chapter focuses on the glass fiber with low loss and high bandwidth. The manufacturing of a glass fiber is carried out in two or three steps, depending on the process used: lay down, consolidation and drying and fiber drawing. Preform production is carried out mainly with the aid of a rotating lathe system and this preform is then drawn into a fiber by using a fiber draw tower. All manufacturing processes usually take place in a clean room area. Single‐mode fibers used as transmission medium are differentiated by two properties, namely characteristics of chromatic dispersion and bending tolerance. Apart from different core designs and transmission properties, all fibers have identical cladding size, primary coating and mechanical strength. As with electrical systems, there is also a desire for a modular construction of optical systems. This creates special demands for optical coupling elements.