FIBER-OPTIC CABLE ALIGNMENT SYSTEM

摘要

A system of reflectors is used to form a beam-expanding and collimating terminus (20) and coupler (59) for fiberoptic cables and electro-optic transducer devices, including radiation sources and/or detectors. Alignment of optical cores (30) of the fiber-optic cables or the reflector system with a transducer is provided by coupling a magnetic member to the core or reflector system (40) and applying a controllable magnetic field to provide alignment, then fixing the components by the use of light-curable epoxy. A reflector collimator/beam spreader are visually aligned with a source, in addition to or instead of an electrical detector, in order to avoid the need to send a signal through the system to a detector when aligning components. Reflections at an air-to-solid interface in a multiple reflector optical device are suppressed by giving the output surface of the device a sligthly curved surface to deflect the reflections away from the optical axis (77).