Abstract
This work is to fabricate a precise optical fiber array using polymer composite for optical interconnection. Optical fiber array has to satisfy low optical loss requirement less than 0.4 dB according to temperature change. For this purpose, design criteria for an optical fiber array was derived. The coefficient of thermal expansion of silica particulate epoxy composites was affected by volume fraction of silica particles. And also, elastic modulus of silica particulate epoxy composites was affected by volume fraction of silica particles. To obtain the coefficients of thermal expansion below $10{\times}10E-6/^{\circ}C$ and elastic modulus more than 20 GPa , we chose the volume fraction more than 76%. Using silica particulate epoxy composites with the volume fraction 76%, 8-channel optical fiber array with dimensional tolerances below $1\;{\mu}m$ was manufactured by transfer molding technique using dies with the uniquely-designed core pin and precisely-machined zirconia ceramic V block. These optical fiber arrays showed optical loss variations within 0.4 dB under thermal cycling test and high temperature test.
