| 摘要 |
A means of fabricating wideband 1x8 singlemode fiber optic couplers is disclosed. It has been found that a 1x7 fiber optic coupler can be fused by twisting six fibers around a central seventh fiber, heating the region on contact among the seven fibers, and drawing until the desired distribution of optical power is achieved among the seven fibers. Both 1x6 and 1x7 couplers can be made this way depending upon the extent of drawing. Using such a coupler in combination with conventional 1x2 and wideband 1x2 couplers allows fabrication of 1x8 couplers using only two or three separate couplers compared to seven couplers required in coupler tree structures. Further, by taking advantage of selected wavelength response behaviors characteristic of each coupler in the combination, the combination of 1x2 and 1x7 or 1x6 couplers is done in a manner to provide relatively improved coupling uniformity over a bandwidth of +/- 50 nm around the operating wavelengths of the 1x8 coupler.
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