Azimuth Angle Orientation of a Microstructured Optical Fiber Using Its Side Image Characteristics

We have developed a nondestructive method to determine the azimuth angle orientation of a microstructured optical fiber (MOF). In our approach, incoherent light is used to illuminate the MOF and its side image is recorded. We defined a characteristic value using the maximum intensity of the image to characterize the azimuth angle orientation and performed a ray tracing simulation to confirm the unique relationship between the characteristic value and the azimuth angle. We have employed the method to determine the azimuth angle for three types of MOFs, and have achieved accuracy better than 0.50°. Our method offers merits in nondestructive and contamination-free measurement. It is expected to greatly benefit the manipulation of MOFs and device fabrication based on the MOFs.