Optical I/O connectors employing Ball-Point pen type optical collimator lenses suitable for plastic optical fiber communications

We have developed an optical I/O connector embedded using optical collimator lenses fabricated with well-defined and proven ball-point pen technology. The collimator lens consists of a glass-ball lens and a plastic optical fiber (POF) in a ball-point pen type metal sleeve. The POF is point-crimped in the sleeve without any adhesives. This enables a reliable fiber assembly without any damage to the POF, because the sensitive fiber end-facet is protected by the surrounding glass-ball and metal sleeve. The coupling loss is as low as 3dB, including Fresnel losses between engaged plug and receptacle collimator lenses. This optical I/O connection scheme has encouraged us to promote the POF as a cost-effective interconnection medium into the consumer electronics market.