Advances in optical fiber technology have largely been driven over the years by the demands of the telecommunications industry, which is served by a relatively small number of internationally-standardized fiber and connector types.
The “Specialty Optical Fiber” field, on the other hand, encompasses a wide range of applications and techniques that seldom involve the transport of encoded information. It is a Wild West of exotic, application-specific fibers with a dizzying range of sizes, materials, configurations and intended uses.
Navigating the field of “specialty fiber” requires a specialist, and Berkshire Photonics is one of the most respected names in the business.
Services We Offer
The most important competency we offer is our ability to listen, understand and help our customers find the best solution to their engineering challenge. True to our motto: Berkshire Photonics. Engineering Answers.
- Fiber Selection. We’ll guide you through the optical, mechanical, environmental and reliability requirements
- Fiber Packaging. Optical fiber is surprisingly tough, but it usually needs some form of protection. For the custom assemblies we build, we offer a range of sheathing, jacketing, armoring and bend-limiting options suitable to the environmental and safety requirements of your application.
- Winding and Spooling. Berkshire Photonics provides precision-winding and -spooling of optical fiber for delay line, reference line, and dispersion-compensation applications. We offer a wide selection of spools with hub diameters appropriate to the bend performance of the fiber used, and offer spools in connectorized, rack-mountable enclosures.
- Connectorization/Termination. The heart of our business… Our experienced staff – attaching single or multifiber connectors to fibers, pigtails, cables/ribbons for datacom, power delivery or sensing
- SMA connectors. Introduced in 1978, the SMA was one of the earliest, widely-adopted fiber optic connector styles. It remains popular for specialty fiber applications because it is customizable in so many ways. Berkshire Photonics has a long and deep association with SMAs, and we offer an unmatched range of components, accessories, and finished SMA assemblies.
Our Expertise
Our team has extensive expertise with specialty optical fiber, and we use that knowledge to coax the best possible performance out of the bundles and assemblies we build. From the deep UV into the mid IR, we understand how fiber components interact, and use that knowledge to make products that outperform our customers’ expectations.
Our expertise covers…
- How fibers are buffered and cabled; stranded and jacketed.
- How to correctly test single mode and both step– and graded-index multimode fibers.
- When and how to use large-core fibers (≥200µm core).
- When and how to use HPCF, double- and triple-clad silica optical fibers.
- Selecting fibers for low–power sensing or high–power laser delivery. And every power level in between.
- Use and testing of high–temperature and hermetically-coated fibers.
- Precision winding, spooling, tension control; package design for delay lines and dispersion compensation modules.
- Armor protected fibers for high power laser
- Proper polishing procedures for different fiber types.
- How to precision–drill connector ferrule to optimally size them for any required fiber size.
- Connectorization/termination for reduced-clad fibers.
- Epoxy-less connectors.
- Connector options for high-power CW and pulsed laser applications.
- High temperature fibers; cabling and termination (up to 500° C).
- Custom array connectors.
- 50µm-clad SMF to 2000µm core HPCF. Cleaved; flat, PC/APC, high-angle polish.
- Special termination techniques; Epoxy, no-epoxy, air gap.
- Multiple, same or different fibers per ferrule termination
- Calculation of minimum bend radius and elevated proof testing
- Terminating, polishing, and testing polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers.
- Custom ceramic ferrules.
- Special cable designs for Distributed Temperature Sensing.
- Smart chip termination and RFID assemblies
Our Experience
Berkshire Photonics has contributed to the evolution of optical fiber technology since 1994. In that time, we’ve built a solid experience base in a host of areas:
- High power (10W to kilowatt) laser delivery.
- Point, multi-point (grating based), continuous sensing systems
- Remote spectroscopy – excitation and return optical systems
- Precision, environmentally–stable delay lines for multiple applications
- Custom dispersion compensation coil and module designs.
- “All Things SMA” since 1978 – standard components and custom modifications to the world’s most enduring fiber optic connector style.
- Work with large, multi-site R&D projects
- Coherent, incoherent, and dissimilar-fiber bundling and termination
- Failure analysis.
Summary
Customers come to Berkshire Photonics for creative solutions, exceptional customer service and fast turnaround. They rely on our expertise to find answers to their challenges.
Berkshire Photonics… Specialty Fiber Experts.
Contact us at +1 860-868-0081 – 89 Commercial Blvd. Torrington, CT 06790