High-power effects in damaged and contaminated optical fiber connectors

The optical fibers are key components for the high-capacity telecommunications networks.The characteristics of physical contact optical connectors deteriorate when the fiber connector interface is contaminated or physically damaged, causing fatal failure or the performance degradation. In this work, we study the temperature and power-loss behavior for contaminated and physically damaged optical connectors, under high optical power regime. The results indicate that the connector lifetime when subjected to high propagation powers, depends essentially on its cleanness rather than the surface degradation resulting from the plugging/unplugging operations. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:2485–2488, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26356