An optical splitter is a passive device, also known as an optical branching device. It is a optic fiber junction device with multiple input ends and multiple output ends. M×N is often used to indicate that a splitter has M input ends and N output ends. In the FTTx system, M can be 1/2, N can be 2/4/8/16/32/64/128, etc. The 2:N splitter adds one backbone optical fiber on the basis of the 1:N splitter, that is, there are two input fibers. It is mainly used in the protection section of the optical path. When one of the branches is interrupted, the other branch can be jumped through the equipment so as to ensure that user services are restored in a short time as far as possible.
Optical splitters can be divided into fused biconical taper splitters (FBT splitter) and planar lightwave circuit splitters (PLC splitter) according to the technology.
FBT fused taper technology refers to bundling two or more optical fibers together, then fusing and stretching on the taper machine, and monitoring the change of the splitting ratio.
PLC splitter refers to the use of semiconductor technology to make optical waveguide branching devices. The function of splitting is completed on the chip. Each light guide path (ie waveguide path) on the planar lightwave circuit splitter is aligned with the optical fibers in the input and output arrays, which is then glued together with a specific glue.
PLC optical splitter can achieve 1/2*128, with a small size, which is convenient for centralized management, and is suitable for various occasions. The wide working bandwidth (loss is not sensitive to wavelength) is conducive to network upgrade, and the working wavelength range is 1260nm to 1650nm.
In the case of high branching, the reliability of FBT optical splitter is reduced, but the splitting ratio can be adjusted, and the cost of low branching is low. 3 windows operating wavelength: 1310nm, 1490nm, 1550nm.