Fujikura Europe presents first commercially available CO₂laser splicer and glass processor to European market

Fujikura Europe, one of the world's leading manufacturers of fibre optic cables and equipment, will showcase the first commercially available glass and processing system, the LZM-100 LAZERMasterTM, at Laser World of Photonics in Munich later this month.

Exclusively developed and manufactured by Fujikura's global research and development team, the LZM-100 uses a CO₂ laser heat source to perform splicing, adiabatic tapering, end-capping and other glass-shaping operations. It is also involved with fibre laser component development, such as for pump combiners and mode-field adaptors.

CO₂ laser heating has been designed to enable cleaner splicing with no contamination, electrode or filament maintenance and instability is eliminated. A typical CO₂ laser has an output power fluctuation of +/- 5 percent which produces inconsistent splicing results and may cause irregularity and ripple in a taper profile. The LZM-100 patent-pending laser power stability feature allows stable laser output, enabling highly repeatable processes and very smooth taper profiles. And with an integrated closed-loop feedback system and real-time measurement function, both splice loss and peak-to-peak taper ripple are greatly reduced.

"The LAZERMasterTM is a unique customised CO₂ laser splicing and glass processing system that will help decrease costs by improving performance and productivity," said Roy Higgins, Deputy Managing Director of Fujikura Europe. "The specialised CO₂ laser brings many advantages to the market such as clean and stabilised CO₂ laser heat source and advanced feedback control techniques. With a significant trend in the industry towards the increased use of fibre lasers and high power delivery systems, the LZM-100 can be adopted into the technically advanced markets such as the fibre laser industry, bio-medical applications, military and defence and more."

The LZM-100 uses a Warm Tapering Imaging (WTI) monitoring system for precise control of heating power.  The WTI brightness level is captured in real time during the tapering and the value is used to adjust the CO₂ laser output power to a level appropriate for the decreasing mass of a fibre as it is tapered to a smaller diameter.

The LAZERMasterTM has specially designed onboard firmware enabling operations to be performed automatically, manually or remotely through a PC. It has large diameter fibre splicing capabilities up to 2.3mm and long tapering capabilities up to 150mm and beam size and shape can be customised to meet specific requirements to enable it to be used for fused glass component development and mass scale production.

Fujikura Europe will present the LZM-100 LAZERMasterTM in Europe at Laser World of Photonics in Munich between 13 – 16 May alongside its newest fusion splicer the 70S, the replacement for the FSM-60S, which has been the best-selling core alignment fusion splicer on the market. Also on display will be Fujikura's high-performance optical fusion splicer and glass processor, the FSM-100P+.

Source: Fujikura