CO2 laser polishing of conical shaped optical fiber deflectors

Abstract

A novel method for polishing conical shaped optical fiber deflectors by modulated CO2 laser exposure is reported. The conical shaped fiber deflector geometry was first formed with rough mechanical polishing, then it was exposed to modulated CO2 laser operating with wavelength at 10.6 µm to achieve fine polish surfaces. The motivation of this work is to demonstrate that the modulated CO2 laser exposure approach allows a fiber surface roughness at a nanometer scale without modifying the conical shape of the fiber deflector. The average surface roughness of mechanically polished fiber deflectors with 30 and 9 µm lapping films was smoothed down to 20.4 and 4.07 nm, respectively, after CO2 laser polishing process. By combining mechanical and laser polishing techniques, fabrication of conical shaped optical fiber deflectors takes less time and it becomes laborer independent and easy to apply.