Specialty splicing engineering services
Optimisation, specialty splicing and glass processing applications.
We're here to maximise your performance.
We provide expert support for specialist applications including tailored training, equipment setup and advanced machine adjustments. The result is reduced splice loss, enhanced accuracy and highly tailored solutions that further our customers' engineering goals.
Our European Technical Service Centre (ETSC) is based at our Chessington, UK, office and is staffed by some of our most highly trained engineers. Through our ETSC we provide optimisation and product training to customers in the UK and throughout Europe. Through extensive collaboration we ensure that Fujikura specialty customers can tailor their equipment to their application and its specific technical requirements. As part of this service, we regularly visit customers throughout Europe, alongside offering remote support and hosting customers at our offices.
Engineering services
With our expert support, you unlock the full potential of your equipment from the very start.
When you buy a piece of Fujikura specialty equipment you’re investing in something that will expand your engineering potential. Our customers use their Fujikura specialty equipment to address unique engineering challenges and we provide extensive aftersales support to ensure that our equipment is doing what’s required. This support takes a few forms – product training which is tailored to the specific application/need/end user, machine set-up according to the same specifications, and site visits to carry out tests. Customers are welcome to visit our ETSC in Chessington, or we will come to their premises.
We provide on-site training and advanced splicer training with the use of specialty splicing equipment of the ARCMaster™ series from the FSM-100M to the LAZERMaster LZM-100 Laser Splicing System. Advanced splicer training is organised at Fujikura’s European Technical Centre and located in Surrey, South West of London.
Optimisation
Precision setup for superior performance, no matter the application.
Optimisation is important to achieve high quality splicing against the constant introduction of new fibres and the mixing of fibre types. Thanks to close collaboration with our customers, we understand their evolving needs and the essential steps required to minimise splice loss and keep splices physically robust in areas that include opto-electronic applications such as optical amplifiers, sensors and fibre lasers.
Our service can involve testing 50 splicer machine parameters, ranging from arc power to fibre movement rate. Since splicers also include loss estimations, a separate optimisation is performed to maximise the accuracy of the splice loss readings.
In the Fujikura FSM100 and Fujikura LZM100 machines, optimisation plays an important role in maximizing benefits of sweep arc technology, which minimizes the effects of differences in mode field diameters in a pair of fibres, thereby reducing splice loss.
We can provide bespoke optimisation parameters which can be easily downloaded onto customer fusion splicers for immediate operation.
CRITICAL SPLICE FABRICATION
MFD (Mismatch Fibre Diameter splicing)
MFD is a process which enables splicing two fibres with different cladding sizes. This is often useful in an R&D setting when tapering a fibre is not preferable, or it is the requirement of the fibre structure. We work closely with our customers to demonstrate the MFD process that meets their specific requirements.
Ball Lens
Ball lensing is glass shaping process to create a ball at the end of a fibre, which is used to manipulate the beam profile of any given fibre. Ball lensing is widely used in the medical sector in surgical equipment, employed in endoscope devices.
End caps
Splicing an end cap glass to a standard silica fibre is a custom process which we develop according to customer requirements. We can create bespoke end cap holders for a variety of different end cap types which can be spliced to any fibre type. We tailer these services on an LZM laser splicer.
PCF (Photonic Crystal Fibres)
PCFs have highly sensitive structures. Engineers working on developing new fibre types often use PCFs to test in specific applications. Because of their sensitivity, it's critical to ensure the correct splicing procedure is implemented without damaging the fibre structure and we work with our customers to develop parameters which ensure successful low loss splices.
Combiners
A combiner is a variety of different fibres fused into a tube then tapered down, and often used in fibre laser applications. We can work with customers to create combiner samples – working with them at our ETSC to create the combiner and providing detailed reports on equipment and settings used.
MFA (Mode Field Adaptors)
Mode field adapters (MFA) modify a fibre’s optical properties to match the fibre that it is being spliced to, which allows a lower loss at the splice point. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: 1 - the larger core fibre is tapered down to match the smaller core size, or 2 - the smaller core can be thermally expanded by heating it before or during the splice.
