THERMALLY EXPANDED MULTIPLE CORE FIBER

摘要

An optical fiber (630) having a thermally expanded multiple core section (63 2, 642). One such multiple core section may be fabricated by fusing together no n- etched multiple fiber cladding resulting in the multiple cores having expand ed mode fields that are positioned in close proximity to each other in a common cladding (634), without signal coupling between the cores. The close proximi ty of the cores having expanded mode fields may allow for tighter alignment of light waves propagated from one core to other cores.