Study of Optical Fiber Failure Under High Power and Bend Conditions

The bending of a fiber in optical link is a common challenge that increases the signal loss which results in light absorption in the coating region. Under the high optical pump power injection as desired for optical amplification, this would increase the coating temperature which may get burnt and end up to a catastrophic fiber failure. To ensure a standard fiber lifetime of 25 years, it is critical to characterize the maximum permissible coating temperature (denoted as T25) and accordingly design the operating conditions. In this paper, we have presented the T25 value of an ITU-T G.657.A2 category bend insensitive fiber (BIF). The superior bend tolerance of BIF compared to G.652.D has clearly resulted in a ~ 28% improvement in T25 (~ 103 °C in BIF against the commonly known ~ 80 °C in G.652.D).