OFS says it has enhanced certain geometry specifications of its LaserWave multimode fibers, including LaserWave WideBand (OM5), LaserWave FLEX 550 (OM4), and LaserWave FLEX 300 (OM3) fibers. The changes should reduce connector loss and improve link system performance. In particular, the new geometry specifications can provide extra margin in 40-, 100-, and 400-Gbps applications, OFS states.
The geometry changes include:
- clad diameter tolerance tightened from 125.0 ± 0.8 μm to 125.0 ± 0.7 μm
- core non-circularity improved from ≤5.0% to ≤2.5%
- core/clad concentricity tightened from ≤1.0 μm to ≤0.7 μm.
The improvements enable better core-to-core alignment and light-coupling efficiency in connectors and splices, according to OFS. A reduction in insertion loss is the result. For example, the company says that modeling of simulated connections showed an average insertion loss improvement of 0.07 dB per connection compared to industry-standard fiber. The model distribution also showed that 97% of insertion losses would be below 0.25 dB with the new LaserWave fiber and 0.40 dB using standards-compliant fiber. With loss budgets for high-speed multimode fiber networks dropping below 2 dB, such low insertion loss could prove critical, OFS asserts, particularly for links with multiple connections.
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