Novel polishing technique for optical fibres

Tapers in optical fibres are very easy to implement simply by stretching the fibre in a flame with the result that tapers and taper based components had proved to be very popular. The unique cladding-mode nature of the taper makes it a very versatile element in all-fibre devices. For instance completely different fibres can be spliced together with low loss simply by tapering the splice joint. Similarly, low loss couplers can be fabricated from completely dissimilar fibres to provide wavelength flat, normal or WDM type couplers. The taper even allows for a wavelength independent y-function device to be implemented in single-mode fibres