Optical joining of fibers of differing diameters in photopolymerizable compositions

An opportunity to connect single-mode quartz fibers of different diameters of a core in transparent photopolymerizable media is investigated by methods of numerical modeling and experimentally as well. Dynamics of a polymeric channel formation by light-beams (lambda = 0.63 mum) in the space between the end faces of standard stepped optical fibers with a core diameter 3 mum and 10 mum is considered in this work. Connectors are synthesized experimentally by He-Ne laser irradiation of photopolymerizable composition based on acryl oligomers. The widths of the created channels are comparable even under exposure by the beams considerably differing on width. Thus, the formed connector allows effective directing of visible and infrared radiation (lambda = 1.55 mum) to a counter fiber in each course. This enables joining the optical fibers differing in core diameter, but polytypic optical fibers also (different standard).