Abstract

The bonding of optical fibre to a planar substrate can be made through the use of solder [1], glass frit [2] and epoxy [3]. However, these methods have limitations in that they exhibit either a mechanical weakness in harsh environments (e.g. high temperature, high pressure and/or solvent exposure) or have poor optical characteristics (e.g. high optical loss, significant scattering, modal and refractive index mismatch with optical fiber). This paper presents a fabrication technique that overcomes these limitations. The resulting composite illustrated in Fig. 1 (a) is both mechanically robust and optically functional. The format enables a route to realise precision layer-up (e.g. high density fibre packing, precision fibre lengths and delay lines), hybridised fibre-planar devices (e.g. MOEMS, evanescent field sensors and environmentally stabilised narrow line lasers) and optical pump schemes (e.g. fibre pumping, pump strippers and mode strippers).

© 2015 IEEE