Dear friends,

Last time I have discussed the permanent technique of joining the fibers that is called splicing. Today I will discuss another technique called connectors:

Connectors: Connectors are the temporary joints between two or more fibers. These can connected or disconnected as and when requires. A few different types of connectors are:

1. Ferrule connectors:

(Meaning of ferrule: A metal ring or cap)

In this method, the fiber ends are inserted into left and right end of the ferrule. Then these ferrules are slid into a tapered sleeve and a butt joint is formed between fiber ends. The joint can be fixed at its position by locking the ferrule arrangement. When in need, the fibers can be again separated by unlocking the ferrule.

2. Expanded beam connectors: In this method, light ray is guided with help of lenses. Light is incident from first fiber on a collimating lens and this lens will make the light parallel and incident on a converging lens and this lens will make the light to converge on a second fiber. In this way light is incident from one fiber to another fiber. When required, the lenses are separated.

Note: Next time I will discuss another method to transmit signal from fiber, called couplers.