Fusion Splicing of Elliptical Core Optical Fibers

Fusion splicing of elliptical core optical fibers is investigated in detail. A formula is derived for how the ellipticity of the mode fields contributes to splice loss. It is shown experimentally that even fibers with rather high mode field ellipticity can be fusion spliced with relatively low loss due to dopant diffusion. It is further shown that the polarization extinction ratio can be maintained at an adequate level.