Various optical fiber connectors have been developed during the 40 years since optical fiber communications systems were first put into practical use. This paper describes the key technologies for optical connectors and recent technical issues.

The fabricated 1.55 µm high power superluminescent light emitting diodes (SLEDs) with 115 mW maximum output power and 3 dB bandwidth of 50 nm, using active multi-mode interferometer (MMI), showed high coupling efficiency of 66% into single-mode fiber, which resulted in maximum fiber-coupled power of 77 mW.

An 80 Gbit/s conventional and carrier-suppressed return-to-zero optical time-division multiplexing signal transmission over a 208 km standard single-mode fiber was experimentally demonstrated. This was achieved by using mid-span optical phase conjugation based on four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers. In addition, it was confirmed that the transmitted carrier-suppressed return-to-zero optical signal's carrier phase-relation was held.

In this letter, we describe the conditions for measuring the nonlinear refractive index n2 when using the self-phase modulation-based cw dual-frequency method. We clarify the appropriate measurement conditions for dispersion-shifted and conventional single-mode fibers both numerically and experimentally. We also show experimentally that the evaluated n2 values for conventional single-mode fiber depend on the signal wavelength separation.

A photonic crystal fibre has an array of microscopic air holes running along its length. The periodicity of the array is broken by a deliberate "defect" that acts as a waveguide core. Light is confined to this core by the holes. Although some designs of photonic crystal fibre guide light by total internal reflection and so can be considered analogues of conventional optical fibres, their properties can be strikingly different. Other designs guide light by photonic bandgap confinement and represent a totally new type of fibre.

A photonic crystal fibre has an array of microscopic air holes running along its length. The periodicity of the array is broken by a deliberate "defect" that acts as a waveguide core. Light is confined to this core by the holes. Although some designs of photonic crystal fibre guide light by total internal reflection and so can be considered analogues of conventional optical fibres, their properties can be strikingly different. Other designs guide light by photonic bandgap confinement and represent a totally new type of fibre.

A model for estimating the bending loss of 1.3 µm zero-dispersion single-mode fibers at 1.58 µm from the value at 1.55 µm is investigated experimentally and theoretically. An approximated equation for estimating the bending loss ratio of 1.58 µm to 1.55 µm is proposed, which provides good agreement with the experimental results.

This paper describes the fabrication of micro-pipes and their applications to splicing parts and optical switches using single-mode fibers. Micro-pipes having almost the same inner diameter of bare fiber (125 µm) and lengths of around 5 mm are successfully mass-produced by using micromachining technology. We fabricate various kinds of metal pipes such as Au, Cu, Ni, and an FeNi alloy by selecting the appropriate electro-plating bath. We use an Au micro-pipe having a small slitted portion running along its axis (slitted micro-pipe) to splice single-mode fibers. We also use an FeNi alloy micro-pipe to construct a single-mode fiber switch. These new single-mode fiber devices employing micro-pipes show excellent optical and mechanical characteristics. Splicing losses are in the range of 0.2-0.4 dB. The developed 1 2 latching type single-mode fiber switches exhibit a low insertion loss of 0.35 dB, a minimum switching speed of 2 ms with a driving power of 9 mW, and stable operation for more than 108 switchings without damage. A practical application of the developed switch for testing optical devices is also demonstrated.