Splice Loss of Fiber Optic Connectors

Fiber splicing is a process of jointing two optical fibers together by a full-automatic dedicated device -- fusion splicer. During the process, two optical fiber end faces are jointed and aligned together by transient electric arc. The connection is widely applied because of small-size fiber optic connector, high mechanical strength and stable performance after connection. The certain loss incurred when light passes though jointed connectors is called splice loss. Factors like slicing quality and long-distance repeaterless transmission affect transmission of optical fibers. Hence, slicing loss at jointed area should be reduced as small as possible to ensure transmission quality of fiber-optic CATV signals.

Currently, most splicing methods can control slicing loss value within 0.1dB, even less than 0.05dB. For specific fiber-optic CATV projects, allowable slicing loss values can be determined by lenghth of repeater section, transmit power of optical equipment, receiving sensitivity and so on. Such values should be clearly specified as slicing loss index in relevant technical documents. Transmission loss value at each repeater section of fiber-optic CATV transmission lines should be also specified, because transmission quality is measured by transmission loss of optical fiber transmission lines after all fiber splicing work and is required to be below 0.25dB/km (including slicing loss).