BEND-LIMITED FLEXIBLE OPTICAL INTERCONNECT DEVICE FOR SIGNAL DISTRIBUTION
The invention relates to a bend limiting structure for preventing a flexible optical circuit from being bent too sharply. More particularly, the invention involves adding a bend limiting layer or layers to the flexible optical circuit and/or any housing or other structure within which it is enclosed or to which it is attached. The bend-limiting layer may comprise a plurality of blocks arranged in a line or plane and joined by a flexible film that is thinner than the blocks, with the blocks positioned close enough to each other so that, if that plane of blocks is bent a predetermined amount, the edges of the blocks will interfere with each other and prevent the plane from being bent any further. The blocks may be resilient also to provide a less abrupt bend-limiting stop.
This is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/102,919, filed Aug. 14, 2018; which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/987,021, filed Jan. 4, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 10/067,295; which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/230,117, filed Sep. 12, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,229,172, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe invention pertains to fiber optic connectivity for high speed signal distribution. More particularly, the invention pertains to methods and apparatus for bend limiting a flexible optical interconnect device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONFiber optic breakout cassettes are merely one form of passive optical interconnect devices commonly used for distributing signals between one or more transmit optical components and one or more receive optical components (often in opposite directions simultaneously).
Other common passive optical interconnect devices are optical multiplexers and demultiplexers, which comprise a flexible optical circuit, for distributing signals between one or more single- or multi-fiber optical connectors on the one hand and one or more single- or multi-fiber optical connectors on the other hand. Other common forms of optical interconnect include simple patch cables and optical splitters.
Flexible optical circuits are passive optical components that comprise one or more (typically multiple) optical fibers imbedded on a flexible substrate, such as a Mylar® or other flexible polymer substrate. Commonly, although not necessarily, one end face of each fiber is disposed adjacent one longitudinal end of the flexible optical circuit substrate and the other end face of each fiber is disposed adjacent the opposite longitudinal end of the flexible optical circuit substrate. The fibers extend past the longitudinal ends of the flexible optical circuit (commonly referred to as pigtails) so that they can be terminated to optical connectors, which can be coupled to fiber optic cables or other fiber optic components through mating optical connectors.
Flexible optical circuits are known, and hence, will not be described in detail. However, they essentially comprise one or more fibers sandwiched between two flexible sheets of material, such as Mylar® or another polymer. An epoxy may be included between the two sheets in order to make them adhere to each other. Alternately, depending on the sheet material and other factors, the two sheets may be heated above their melting point to heat weld them together with the fibers embedded between the two sheets.
Flexible optical circuits such as shuffle 100 of
The invention relates to a bend limiting structure for preventing a flexible optical circuit from being bent too sharply. More particularly, the invention involves adding a bend limiting layer or layers to the flexible optical circuit and/or any housing or other structure within which it is enclosed or to which it is attached. The bend-limiting layer may comprise a plurality of blocks arranged in a line or plane and joined by a flexible film that is thinner than the blocks, with the blocks positioned close enough to each other so that, if that plane of blocks is bent a predetermined amount, the edges of the blocks will interfere with each other and prevent the plane from being bent any further. The blocks may be resilient also to provide a less abrupt bend-limiting stop.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2013/0064506, filed Sep. 12, 2011, which is incorporated herein fully by reference, discloses a lensed flexible optical circuit bearing at least one, but, more effectively, many optical fibers embedded in a flexible optical circuit substrate with molded lenses (or other light-guiding, fiber termination elements such as mirrors, gratings, etc.) disposed at the ends of the fibers. The lensed flexible optical circuit can be incorporated into a housing to form any number of optical interconnect devices, such as optical cassettes, optical multiplexers/demultiplexers, optical breakouts, and optical monitoring stations. The lenses can be optically interfaced to optical connectors (e.g., MPO, LC, ST, SC plugs) at the ends of cables or at the interfaces of electro-optical devices without the need for a full mating connector (e.g., MPO, LC, ST, SC receptacles). Rather, a connector on an optical component, e.g., an LC plug at the end of a fiber optic cable, can be plugged into an adapter on a panel of the housing to optically couple to one of the optical fibers on the flexible optical circuit inside of the cassette enclosure via one of the lenses. The elimination of conventional mating connectors inside the cassette significantly reduces overall cost because it eliminates the skilled labor normally associated with terminating an optical fiber to a connector, including polishing the end face of the fiber and epoxying the fiber into the connector. It further allows the optical interconnect device (e.g., an optical cassette) to be made very thin. The housing for the lensed flexible optical circuit also may be flexible. In yet other embodiments, there may be no housing at all.
Since the lensed flexible optical circuit is mechanically flexible, the concept of the present invention can be used in many different applications, of which optical cassettes is merely one example. For instance, it can be used to make right angle connections. It may be curled into a cylinder and used to make optical interconnections in existing conduit. The lensed flexible optical circuit connectivity concept can be incorporated into flexible housings, such as housings made of rubber so that a single cassette can be used to make connections in different environments and/or can compensate for offsets in all six degrees of freedom (e.g., X, Y, Z, roll, pitch, and yaw).
The invention further can be incorporated into housings having parts interconnected by one or more hinges so that the housings are bendable about the hinges to provide similar flexibility.
Considerable technology has been developed relating to the design, fabrication, and use of such lenses in optical connectors, which technology can be used to design and fabricate such lenses 230, terminate the optical fibers 217 with such lenses, and couple light through such lenses to fibers in optical connectors. Such information can be obtained from the following patents and patent applications, all of which are incorporated herein fully by reference:
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- U.S. Pat. No. 7,722,261 entitled Expanded Beam Connector;
- U.S. Pat. No. 8,085,472 entitled Expanded Beam Interface Device and Method of Fabricating Same;
- U.S. Pat. No. 8,313,249 entitled Multi-Fiber Ferrules for Making Physical Contact and Method of Determining Same;
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,852 entitled Expanded Beam Fiber Optic Connector;
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,779 entitled Optical Fiber Array Interconnection;
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,480,661 entitled Optical ADD/DROP Filter and Method of Making Same;
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,690,862 entitled Optical Fiber Circuit;
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,852 entitled Expanded Beam Fiber Optic Connector; and
- U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0014645, filed Jul. 14, 2010, entitled Single-Lens, Multi-Fiber Optical Connector Method and Apparatus.
More specifically, technology is available to couple a connector directly in front of the lens 230 so that the lens does not need to have its own conventional mating connector, such as disclosed in aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 7,722,261.
As shown in
In yet other embodiments, such as illustrated in
Situations in which lensed flexible optical circuits are useful are bountiful. For instance, because there are no internal connectors (in lensed embodiments), the flexible optical circuit interconnector can be made very thin. Particularly, it may comprise a housing that, other than the end faces that receive the external connectors, merely need be thick enough to house the flexible optical circuit (and accommodate any necessary curvature thereof, such as corrugations or an S curve as mentioned previously). In fact, also as previously noted, in some embodiments, there may be no housing at all and adapters or other structure for receiving the external connectors may be incorporated directly on the flexible optical circuit adjacent the end faces of the fibers and the lenses. Accordingly, it can be used for very low profile surface-mounted boxes, such as for use in low profile wall-mounted interconnects for office buildings, etc. It also may be used for interconnects in modular furniture pieces, which often provide very small spaces for electrical or optical equipment.
Yet further, it is envisioned that a wide variety of optical interconnects can be made modularly from a relatively small number of modularly connectable housing components, flexible optical circuits, lens blocks, and adapters. Particularly, there would need to be a flexible optical circuit for each different optical routing pattern type, e.g., 1 to 12 cable breakout (such as illustrated in
While the optical interconnects have been described herein in connection with embodiments employing molded lenses, it will be understood that this is merely exemplary and that other optical components may be embedded in the laminate at the ends of the fibers, such as diffraction gratings, Escalier gratings, mirrors, and holograms.
Since the lensed flexible optical circuits are flexible, they can be bent to accommodate many different physical layouts. Furthermore, the lensed flexible optical circuits may be constructed of sufficient length to accommodate longer applications, but may be folded for shorter applications. In cassette type or other application involving a housing, a set of multiple housing pieces adapted to be modularly joined to each other in various combinations may be provided. The housing components may provide for hinged and/or fixed joining. One or more of the housing components may be flexible. Thus, it is possible to modularly create a wide variety of housing shapes, place one of the flexible optical circuits within it, and place lens blocks in suitable adapters disposed in windows in the housings.
Since the lensed (
The spacing and size of the blocks should be selected so as to prevent further flexing of the flexible optical circuit 250 when the bend radius of the film is slightly less than the maximum desired bend radius to prevent delamination, fiber breakage, and/or signal loss within the fibers. The blocks may be hard or may have some resilience in order to provide a soft bend limiting stop.
By providing a single, two-dimensional planar array of blocks (e.g., rows and columns), bending is limited in two directions, namely, the directions illustrated by arrow pairs A and B in
If bend limiting is desired in only one direction, then the plurality of blocks may comprise a single line of blocks (e.g., a single row or column).
In the bend limiting layer 333 illustrated in
Yet further, the blocks 335 can be disposed on one side of the film 337 so as to limit bending only in one direction of the arrow pair A and/or arrow pair B. In some embodiments, a first bend limiting layer may be disposed on one side of the flexible optical circuit and a second bend limiting layer may be disposed on the other side of the flexible optical circuit substrate in order to collectively provide bend limiting in both directions of the arrow pair(s).
The blocks need not be uniformly spaced. For example, if for any reason it is desired to allow a first portion of the flexible optical circuit to bend more than a second portion, the blocks may be spaced further apart (and/or made shorter) in the first portion of the bend limiting layer than in the second portion. Furthermore, the bend limit in the two orthogonal directions represented by arrow pair A on the one hand and arrow pair B on the other hand need not necessarily be equal. For example, the blocks may be spaced at longer intervals in dimension Y than in dimension X so as to allow greater bending (i.e., bending to a smaller radius) in the direction of arrow pair B than in the direction of arrow pair A. The particular routing of the fibers on the flexible optical circuit very well may dictate the ability to allow much greater bending in one direction or one portion of the flexible optical circuit than in another. For instance, the flexible optical circuit of
Yet further, while the blocks 335 are substantially cubic in the illustrated embodiments, this is merely exemplary. The blocks may be of essentially any shape, such as cubes, cylinders, semi-cylinders, spheres, hemispheres, rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, truncated cones (frustums), truncated pyramids, etc. In fact, the shape, and not merely the size, of the blocks may be used to dictate the bend limit in different directions. In addition, the shapes of the blocks may be different in different portions of the flexible optical circuit substrate so as to provide different bend limits in different portions of the flexible optical circuit substrate.
The film layer 337 preferably is formed of a flexible and resilient film, such as another layer of Mylar® (a trademark of E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Company) or another flexible and resilient polymer. The film preferably is resilient because it may need to stretch and compress so as not to de laminate from the flexible optical circuit during bending and/or so as not to unnecessarily resist bending in the direction opposite of the side of the flexible optical circuit on which it is disposed.
The blocks 335 may be either embedded in the film 337, as illustrated, or adhered to one side of the film. In other embodiments, the bend limiting layer 333 may be of unitary construction, such as a molded piece made of a single material such as Mylar® with the block portions 335 simply being molded thicker than the intermediate film portions 337. Alternately, the blocks may be formed of any reasonable hard or semi-hard material, such as polyethylene, hard rubber, metal, etc.
In yet other embodiments, the blocks 335 need not be attached to a separate film such as film 337, but instead may be adhered to or otherwise disposed directly on one or both of the opposing major surfaces 338, 339 of the flexible optical circuit 250 itself.
In embodiments in which the flexible optical circuit 250 is disposed within a bendable housing such that the flexible optical circuit only bends essentially as dictated by the bending of the housing, such as in the embodiments illustrated in
Having thus described particular embodiments of the invention, various alterations, modifications, and improvements will readily occur to those skilled in the art. Such alterations, modifications, and improvements as are made obvious by this disclosure are intended to be part of this description though not expressly stated herein, and are intended to be within the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the foregoing description is by way of example only, and not limiting. The invention is limited only as defined in the following claims and equivalents thereto.
Claims
1. A device for interconnecting optical signals between at least one first optical component and at least one second optical component comprising:
- a flexible optical circuit substrate layer having first and second, opposed major surfaces;
- a plurality of optical fibers disposed on the substrate, each of the optical fibers having a first end and a second end;
- a bend limiting layer attached to the flexible optical circuit so as to bend with and substantially identically to the flexible optical circuit substrate, the bend limiting layer comprising a plurality of blocks disposed relative to each other such that adjacent pairs of the blocks contact each other when the bend limiting layer is bent a predetermined amount, thereby resisting further bending of the bend limiting layer and the flexible optical circuit substrate.
2. The device of claim 1, wherein the bend limiting layer is attached to the first major surface of the flexible optical circuit substrate.
3. The device of claim 1 further comprising a housing within which the flexible optical circuit substrate is disposed, wherein the bend limiting layer is attached to the housing.
4. The device of claim 1 further comprising:
- at least a first light-guiding, fiber termination optical element disposed on the substrate adjacent the first ends of the optical fibers positioned to couple light with the optical fibers; and
- at least a second light-guiding, fiber termination optical element disposed on the substrate adjacent the second ends of the optical fibers positioned to couple light with the optical fibers.
5. The device of claim 1, wherein the light-guiding, fiber termination optical elements are lenses.
6. The device of claim 1, wherein the flexible optical circuit substrate comprises a laminate having first and second layers, and wherein the plurality of optical fibers are embedded between the first and second layers.
7. The device of claim 1, wherein the bend limiting layer further comprises a film interconnecting the blocks.
8. The device of claim 7, wherein the film is resiliently stretchable.
9. The device of claim 7, wherein the blocks and the film of the bend limiting layer are unitary.
10. The device of claim 7, wherein the blocks extend in only one direction perpendicularly from a plane defined by the film.
11. The device of claim 1, wherein the bend limiting layer comprises a first bend limiting layer disposed on the first major surface of the flexible optical circuit substrate and a second bend limiting layer disposed on the second major surface of the flexible optical circuit substrate.
12. The device of claim 1 wherein the blocks are arranged in a two dimensional planar array.
13. The device of claim 12 wherein the blocks are arranged in rows and columns.
14. The device of claim 12 wherein the bend limiting layer provides different bend limits in different orthogonal directions.
15. The device of claim 3 wherein the housing is flexible.
16. The device of claim 3 wherein the housing comprises first and second housing parts hingedly connected to each other.
Type: Application
Filed: Apr 10, 2020
Publication Date: Dec 10, 2020
Inventor: James Joseph Eberle, JR. (Hummelstown, PA)
Application Number: 16/845,220