Optical Characteristics and Reliability of 16-Fiber Fiber Physical Contact Connector with Zirconia Ceramic Micro-Hole Array

Optical connectors for printed circuit board interfaces are required for the implementation of reliable high-density multi-fiber connection. We developed a 16-fiber fiber physical contact (FPC) connector with an MU connector coupling mechanism and a compact shutter to meet this requirement. In the FPC connector, two arrays of fibers are aligned in micro-holes without ferrules. A micro-hole array is a key component as regards the optical characteristics of the FPC connector. We developed a 16-ch micro-hole array composed of injection molded zirconia ceramics. The 16-liber FPC connectors with a zirconia ceramic micro-hole array had an insertion loss of less than 0.3 dB with an average value of 0.07 dB and a return loss of over 45 dB. The optical characteristics remained stable in environmental and mechanical tests.