High-power performance of single-mode fiber-optic connectors

We measured the continuous wave (CW) laser-induced damage threshold of single-mode fiber-optic connectors at 1550 nm. Clean standard physical contact and angled physical contact connectors did not show any evidence of damage for 10 min exposures of 1 W or 3 W. Defective connectors with scratched or undercut endfaces showed identical high-power tolerance as clean connectors without defects. Samples contaminated with carbon black-doped acrylate showed drastic optical failure signatures at approximately 50 mW. Contaminated connectors with expanded mode field diameters ranging from 20 to 62 μm showed higher failure thresholds than standard connectors with 10-μm spot sizes. We observed that the optical failure threshold power level (P_failure) increased linearly with spot size for the highly contaminated connectors used in this study.