The Study Of Glass-based Optical Splitter Made By The Ion-exchange Technology

With the development of optical communication, there's a large need for optical splitter because of the construction of all kinds of optical networks. The main function of optical splitter is used as optical divider/combiner. It's one of the core devices of optical networks. The content of this paper is manufacture of optical waveguide and optical splitter by the technology of ion-exchange.The application background of optical splitter is first introduced in the paper, the materials and manufacture technologies are then listed. The key of study is on the theory and experiment of ion-exchange, as well as the two step way of K~+-Na~+ and Ag~+-Na~+ ion-exchange. A model of ion-exchange is set up to analysis the process of ion-exchange. Thus theory and experiment can direct each other. To set up the model, the physical mechanism is analyzed carefully. From the Fick's first law and the second law, the equation of ion-exchange is obtained by the exact math analysis. Then the equation of ion-exchange will be solved with the numerical method recur to the matlab software. The results well simulate the process of first K~+-Na~+ ion-exchange, second Na~+-K~+ ion-exchange and field-assisted ion-exchange. Compared with experiment result, theory and experiment have a uniform characteristic.The design of optical splitter is done at last. According to the number of outputs, optical splitter can be sorted into 1×4, 1×8, 1×16 , 1×32 and so on. The optical software is used to simulate the performance of device, then the devices are fabricated in the experiment. After the test, we can get the parameters of optical splitters, which accord with the theory values. And the performance of devices can satisfy FTTH (Fiber To The Home) system.The paper refers to the all aspects of studying optical splitter, from the theory of ion-exchange to the experiment of optical waveguide, from the design of device to the manufacture and test. The key content is the theory and experiment of ion-exchange, which is the main content of optical splitter.