A novel method for fabricating aspheric fiber lens and its applications

A single-mode fiber (SMF) with a microlens on one end is widely used to facilitate laser-to-fiber and/or fiber-to-fiber coupling in optical communication systems. This paper will apply an excimer laser micromachining system and its planetary contour scanning method to fabricate refractive and aspheric microlenses which can be integrated with optical fibers. Two types of fiber lenses are investigated. The first one is for optic focusing aiming at a minimized focal spot size at a reasonable working distance. The second one is for optical collimation so that the beam coming out from the fiber has minimum divergence. Both types of fiber lenses can find a wide range of applications in electro-optic devices and optical communication.