What Is It?
The Taper Manufacturing Station (TMS) is a production ready glass processing station for tapering of optical fibers with an integrated cleaving package. The TMS is designed for use in the manufacturing of optical fiber tapers and bundles.
The TMS features 3SAE’s patented Thermally Stabilized Plasma™. The manufacturing friendly TMS is a dedicated fiber tapering system that provides easy fiber access, unparalleled heating source control, stiction-free pulling results in the highest quality, lowest loss and best repeatability in the industry.
Why Is It Better?
The TMS operates in partial vacuum which is advantageous in producing adiabatic fiber tapers. Operating 3SAE’s patent pending Thermally Stabilized Plasma™ in partial vacuum allows the width of the plasma field to expand up to 10x along the axis of the fiber. Heat sources with a wider heat profile are better for tapering and bundling of fibers because the pull distance per unit time is distributed over the molten region in accordance with the profile. Narrow profiles create modulations and stress concentrations that induce losses. Our wider plasma field flattens and reduces the frequency of modulations resulting in losses of less than 1% in tapers.
An additional benefit of operating in partial vacuum is oxidation of the electrodes is minimized during the tapering process, resulting in virtually debris free tapers. High power testing has confirmed the Thermally Stabilized Plasma does not contaminate the surface of the glass, eliminating the need for acid etching and reduces the risk and cost of production and rework.
The TMS features three customizable tapering modes: single direction tapering, bi-directional tapering and table based tapering. Table based tapering method allows the flexibility of a syntax based software program to create a custom taper program while using a simplified Lab VIEW based GUI. Alternately, programs such as “MATLAB” or Microsoft Excel can be utilized to develop the tapering program.
