Optical characteristics of injection molded plastic ferrules for single-mode optical fiber applications

We injection molded a plastic ferrule for a single-mode optical fiber conne ctor, We used liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) as the molding material beca use of its fine mold replication ability and introduced an eccentricity con trol mechanism into the ferrule mold. As a result, we succeeded in molding plastic ferrules whose eccentricity was less than 1 mu m by optimizing the eccentricity control conditions. The connection loss of these low eccentric ity plastic ferrules was around 0.2 dB and they exhibited an excellent refl ection characteristic of 52.5 dB. These initial results were maintained dur ing mating tests and temperature and humidity cycling tests.