Cleaved Bare Fiber

The inspection of cleaved bare fibers is necessary to measure the cleave angle of a bare fiber after it has been cleaved as well as the surface geometry after polishing. This inspection step can be done during QA in a standard connector production. However, it is very common in applications where a fiber is coupled in an opto-electronic or photonic system through means other than a standard connector. Laser systems, medical devices and sensors are a few applications where cleaved bare fibers are used. Large diameter or non-standard fibers are commonly employed for these types of applications.

8 degree cleaves are very commonly used to take advantage of the significant reduction in back reflection from an angled interface. Specialized applications can incorporate cleaves up to 50 degrees. To inspect such large cleave angles, the Variable Angle Tilt Stage (VATS) was developed for use with the FiBO 300 model. This stage allows both an X-Y translation and a 0-50° tilt for inspection.