FOC Blogs

Fiber Optic Center is committed to choosing suppliers that value the environment. Almost all manufacturing processes produce waste. With thoughtful engineering, the toxicity of this waste can be diminished. Making lapping film is no different. When Fiber ...

Almost all epoxies used in the fiber optic industry are two-part epoxy systems consisting of a resin and a hardener or activator.  All the chemicals in these two-part epoxies can cause an allergic reaction, but the component most commonly causing ...

Primarily, the indicator of over-polished connectors is poor repeatability in measurements of the return loss and insertion loss. For the majority of “spring-loaded ferrule connectors” e.g.; LC, SC, MU, FC. Determining over-polishing of the connector is ...

FOC’s ÅngströmLink™ web page is your connection to unique optical products to meet new and emerging technical challenges including optical plastics, hard cure, soft cure, optical fluid, optical coatings, thixotropic gels, optical polyimide, silica spheres:...

In recent decades the quality of plastic optics has improved drastically. What was formerly considered to be cheap, low-quality lenses are now high-quality, lightweight, low-cost, precision optics. These optics can be seen everywhere (though more likely you...

Nothing in the ordinary world informs our intuition about how materials will behave at molecular interfaces. The cartoon below shows a typical imprinting process: a photoimageable imprint resin formed into a layer on a rigid substrate (silicon or glass wafer), with the...

A large number of U.S. fiber company presidents woke up on Jan. 1, 2002, looked in the mirror, and said, ”I don’t have a business plan.” For the previous two years, business was crazy good. At OFC in 2000, a supplier asked me how we were doing.  I said...

Designing optics for index matching requires knowledge of the refractive index of the adjoining optical materials. By convention, the value of the refractive index at the Sodium D line (589nm, ‘yellow’) is usually quoted for optical materials, even when the...

In terms of long-term reliability, the “weakest link” of a connectorized cable assembly is the area within the ferrule which contains the strip “transition point” (where the buffered fiber is stripped down to bare fiber) and the majority of the injected epoxy. ...

Ever tried measuring the insertion loss of a Multi-Mode connector using a single-mode launch fiber? You tend to get really good results! It’s like squirting a 1/2 inch garden hose into a 3 inch fire hose from a foot away. It’s not difficult to catch ...