Portable polymer optical fibre cleaver

Polymer optical fibre (POF) is a growing technology in short distance telecommunication due to its flexibility, easy connectorization, and lower cost than the mostly deployed silica optical fibre (SOF) technology. Microstructured POFs (mPOFs) have particular promising potential applications in the sensors and telecommunications field, they could specially help to reduce losses in polymer fibres by using hollow-core fibres. However, mPOFs are intrinsically more difficult to cut due to the cladding hole structure and it becomes necessary to have a high quality polymer optical cleaver. In the well-known hot-blade cutting process, fibre and blade are heated, which requires electrical components and increases cost. A new method has recently been published to cut POF without the need for heating the blade/fibre, therefore electronically devices are not required if it is used a proper mechanical system. In this paper, we present a passive and portable polymer optical cleaver implemented with a mechanical system formed by a constant force spring and a damper.