Optical Fiber Switches, Multiplexers

piezosystem jena is specialized in manufacturing of optical fiber switches and multiplexers for optical fibers in multimode. The piezo electric driven switches are especially designed for high switching times in the millisecond range. Piezo electric actuators enable the optical switch to couple optical fibers with an accuracy of few micro. Therefore no optical components inside are required. The piezo driven optical switches are available for the fiber core diameter of 50 µm up to 600 µm.

In 1999 piezosystem jena was introduced as one of the first companies in the world to provide optical fiber switches for the multiplexing of optical signals. Since then piezosystem jena has expanded its line to a variety of fiber switches for different types of fibers and different numbers of channels.

Standard configurations are switches from 1 by 1 up to 1 by 9 channels. Standard fiber diameters are 50 to 600 micrometer. All kinds of connectors can be used. By utilizing piezoelectric actuators technology, piezosystem jena can guarantee a very high accuracy in the positioning of optical fibers.

piezosystem jena developed a unique principle of fiber surface coupling. The major advantage of this principle is the wavelength independence of our switches due to the fact that it is not necessary to have any optical components inside of it.

The high accuracy of positioning of the piezoelectric actuators guarantees a light transmission of >80%, with a typical switching time of <1 ms. Fiber switches with optical components, like lenses or prisms, will always result in a wavelength-dependent limitation.

The small size of the switching box and the easy control make these fiber optic switches ideally suited for use as components of spectrometers or other metrology devices. Switches with more than 100 output channels can be easily achieved by cascading the switching modules.

Multiplexers from piezosystem jena are distributed under the brand name "optojena".