Splicing of silica-based MOF and standard SMF: Loss evaluation using an enhanced field model

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Abstract Splice losses between the transmission optical fibers and the fiber-based devices have been considered as one of the bottlenecks in accomplishing the optical networks. Consequently, the practical utilization of specialty optical fibers such as triangular solid-core microstructured optical fibers (T-MOFs) in conjunction with splicing to dissimilar standard single-mode fiber (SMF) prerequisite a trustworthy, repeatable and robust low-loss splicing. Utilizing an enhanced field model, we appraised the splice losses between two similar T-MOFs without considering collapsing of air-holes at the joint interface with azimuthal and transverse offsets, and the splice loses between T-MOF and classical SMF are also explored. Collapsing of air-holes can facilitate to minimize the mode-profile inconsistency at splicing interface and hence, lowering the losses; therefore, we evaluated the mode-field diameter (MFD) as a function of collapse ratio. We reported splice losses of ~0.378 dB and ~5.032 dB at 1.55 µm between two identical T-MOFs with Λ = 4.0 µm, for the case of azimuthal and transverse offset, respectively. Also, we examined the consistency of our results by evaluating the relative errors, and the comparisons have been incorporated with those as reported in the literature.