Laminated Fiber Ribbon for Optical Communication Cables

The minimum loss obtainable in high-quality optical fibers has been steadily decreasing over the years with losses of less than 2 d B / k m at 1.06 ^m now being reported. 1 These advances along with those in the area of sources and detectors indicate that the basic components needed to build digital fiber links capable of operation in the tens or perhaps even hundreds of M b / s range are becoming available. Combining a plurality of fragile optical fibers with adequate packaging to form a rugged communications cable is needed before fiber systems become practical. The ribbon structure (linear array) for packaging optical fibers was suggested by Standley 2 and others of Bell Laboratories. This linear array structure is attractive from the splicing standpoint since groups of fibers can be handled at once. The "essentially two-dimensional" nature of fiber ribbons relaxes the alignment requirements needed to accomplish mass field splicing of optical cables. This is advantageous for multifiber splicing. In addition, the ribbon provides mechanical support and increased bulk, thereby greatly improving the "handling qualities" of individual fibers. Other fundamental requirements of any ribbon structure are as follows: 929