Reducing stress-induced birefringence in optical fiber ribbons

Coated and ribboned optical fibers are liable to external stress of the coating materials which may induce additional birefringence in the fiber glass. This residual stress in the coating may increase the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) of the fibers with a value well above allowed in modern, optical telecommunication systems. We report our numerical efforts on reducing the stress caused birefringence in fiber ribbons optimizing the geometry as well as the material parameters of the coating materials. We found that changing the cross-sectional geometry of the fiber ribbon such as edge shape or the ratio of primary and secondary coatings may lead to significant stress and constitutively PMD reduction in optical fibers. Changing the stiffness or the glass transition temperature (GTT) of the different components may also yield optimal conditions for stress reduction according to our finite element analyzes.