Measurement of Loss Due to Offset, End Separation, and Angular Misalignment in Graded Index Fibers Excited by an Incoherent Source

It is essential to know the transmission loss caused by misalignment of the fiber ends in designing fiber connectors and splices. Graded index fibers are important to fiberguide transmission applications that require low dispersion characteristics. The study of the transmission loss caused by misalignment of fibers having graded index profiles is thus necessary. Theoretical investigations of the loss versus offset at zero axial separation have recently been published. 1-4 Further studies of the problem--i.e., loss versus offset, end separation, and angular misalignment of graded index fibers--have been done experimentally. 5-7 This paper presents the results of two separate experiments.