JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO.

3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023 999

Reduced Coating Diameter Fibers for High Density

Optical Interconnects
Ming-Jun Li , Fellow, IEEE, Arash Abedijaberi, Weijun Niu, Eric E. Leonhardt , Donald A. Clark,
Garth W. Scannell, Matthew R. Drake, Jeffery S Stone , Joseph E. McCarthy, Arthur L. Wallace, Huayun Deng,
Linda S. Baker, Hector M. De Pedro , Brian A. Kent, Jie Liu, Randy L. McClure, Qi Wu, Kefeng Li,
James R. Matthews, Sebastian Olszewski, and Yunfeng Gu

(Invited Paper)

Abstract—Reduced coating diameter fibers (RCDF) are attrac- I. INTRODUCTION

tive for increasing fiber density in cables due to their compatibility
with the standard 125 µm clad diameter. In this paper, we review
recent progress on RCDF and present new modeling and exper-
imental results. We developed microbending models to quantify
both the intrinsic and extrinsic microbending sensitivities. Mod-
eling results show that RCDF have lower intrinsic microbending
sensitivity but higher extrinsic microbending sensitivity. We made
RCDF with coating diameters from 125 to 175 µm. The fibers
showed good attenuation on shipping reel, which confirms model-
ing results on intrinsic microbending. We performed microbending
tests on RCDF to quantify their extrinsic microbending sensitivity.
The extrinsic microbending results suggest that the microbend-
ing sensitivity of RCDF can be reduced by using softer primary
coating materials and bend-insensitive fiber designs. We studied
the mechanical properties of RCDF including fiber proof strength
and puncture resistance. Fiber proof tests showed that fibers with
coating diameter greater than 160 µm could pass the 100 kpsi proof
test at similar break rates to 242 µm. Fiber puncture resistance
could be improved by using better coating material designs. We
also conducted a cable trial on a loose tube cable using RCDF
with 160 and 170 µm coating diameters. It showed that the RCDF
could increase the fiber density by more than 2 times without any
microbending and fiber handling issues. Finally, we studied thin
125 µm coated fiber for making low-loss connectors with direct
ferrule insertion without stripping the coating, which is promising
to reduce fiber breaks and improve connector long term reliability.
Index Terms—Data center, Data center interconnect, Fiber
attenuation, Fiber cable, Fiber coating, Fiber connector, Fiber
design, Fiber reliability, Microbending, Optical interconnect,
Reduced clad fiber, Reduced coating diameter fiber.
Manuscript received 31 May 2022; revised 11 August 2022 and 14 September
2022; accepted 6 October 2022. Date of publication 14 October 2022; date of
current version 2 February 2023. (Corresponding author: Ming-Jun Li.)
The authors are with the Corning Incorporated, Corning, NY 14831 USA
(e-mail: lim@corning.com; abedijaba@corning.com; niuw@corning.com;
leonhardee@corning.com; clarkda@corning.com; scannellgw@corning.com;
drakemr@corning.com; stonejs@corning.com; mccarthyje@corning.com;
wallaceal@corning.com; dengh@corning.com; bakerls@corning.com;
depedrohm@corning.com; kentba@corning.com; liuj29@corning.com;
mcclurerl@corning.com; wuq@corning.com; lik6@corning.com; matthewsjr
@corning.com; olszewsks@corning.com; guy@corning.com).
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2022.3214770.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2022.3214770
ATA center traffic has been growing exponentially due
D to the increased number of connected devices and new
applications such as digitization of technologies and processes,
remote working, over-the-top (OTT) media services, internet
of things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and cloud computing.
Hyper-scale data centers with millions of servers are being built
to accommodate the bandwidth demand. To increase the capacity
while reducing the footprint, high density optical interconnects
are becoming a critical building component for data centers. One
approach for increasing the bandwidth density is to use higher
data rates [1] and more wavelengths [2] in data transmission
systems. Another approach is to increase the spatial channel
density in fiber cables. Space division multiplexing (SDM) has
been proposed using new types of multicores fibers or few
modes fibers [3], [4], [5]. However, new ecosystems need to
be developed for deploying these new SDM fibers including
low-cost fiber manufacturing, fan-in/out or mode mux/demux
devices, splicing and connector technologies.
The spatial channel/pathway density can also be increased by
reducing the fiber diameter. Fig. 1 shows the fiber density in
a cable as a function of fiber coating diameter. If the coating
diameter is reduced to 175, 145 or 125 μm, the cable density is
increased by a factor of 2, 3, or 4, respectively (relative to the
standard fiber coating diameter of 250 μm). In addition, reducing
the coating diameter can increase the fiber density in the ferrule
and shrink the size of the connector, which could enable a smaller
over grip that matches the size of pre-term cables with high fiber
core density for data center interconnects (DCI).
The fiber diameter can be reduced by decreasing the coating
thickness and/or glass diameter. Fibers with the standard 125 μm
glass diameter and reduced coating diameters of 190 μm to 200
μm have been commercially available for the past few years.
Further reducing the coating diameter to below 190 μm with the
standard glass diameter has been proposed [6], [7], [8], [9]. In
parallel, reduced cladding fibers with a glass diameter of 80 μm
and a coating diameter around 165 μm have also been proposed
for DCI beyond the specialty applications [10], [11], [12].
In this paper, we present a study on reducing coating di-
ameters below 175 μm, which corresponds to a cable density

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1000
Fig. 1. Fiber density in a cable as a function of fiber coating diameter.
Fig. 2. Two approaches for reducing fiber diameter.
improvement by a factor of 2 or higher. We have extended
our previous studies [6], [8], [24] to include new modeling
and experimental results. In Section II, we review reduced
diameter fiber technologies and discuss the tradeoffs of two
different approaches including reducing cladding and reducing
coating diameters. We then focus on reducing the coating diam-
eter in Section III and discuss design considerations including
both the microbending sensitivity and mechanical reliability.
In Section IV, we present experimental fiber results on both
optical and mechanical performances and cable trial results. In
Section V, we demonstrate a new application of direct ferrule
insertion for making connectors using thin coated fibers without
stripping the coating. Finally, we present conclusions in Section
VI.
II. APPROACHES FOR REDUCING FIBER DIAMETER
There are two approaches for reducing the fiber diameter as
shown in Fig. 2. One approach is the reduced clad fiber (RCF)
in which the clad diameter is reduced to less than 125 μm, for
example 80 μm. The coating thickness can be kept the same
as the standard diameter fiber or can be reduced too. RCF was
originally proposed for fiber component applications to reduce
the form factor. Compared with fiber with 125 μm clad diameter,
the minimum bend radius can be reduced by about 40% for RCF
with 80 μm clad to meet the long-term mechanical reliability
requirement. Recently, RCF has also been proposed for high
density optical fiber cable applications [10], [11], [12]. However,
connectivity solutions with new equipment and procedures need
to be developed and adopted for cable termination.
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023
The other approach is the reduced coating diameter fiber
(RCDF) in which only the coating diameter is reduced while
keeping the clad diameter of 125 μm. For RCDF, a key advantage
is the compatibility with the existing ecosystem for standard
single-mode fibers with 125 μm glass diameter so that the fiber
can be handled with standard field equipment and installation
procedures for splicing and connectorization.
For both the RCF and RCDF, two key design considerations
are microbending sensitivity and mechanical reliability, which
we will discuss in more detail in the next section.
III. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR RCDF
A. Microbending Sensitivity
Fiber microbending refers to microscopic deviations along
the fiber axis from thermal or mechanical pressures exerted
on the fiber. For microbending sensitivity, both the glass di-
ameter and the coating thickness play important roles. Fiber
microbending can be classified into two categories. One cate-
gory is the intrinsic microbending (IM) caused by fiber buck-
ling due to stresses produced by the differential thermal ex-
pansions between the glass and the coating materials in the
coating process during the fiber draw without external me-
chanical perturbations. Another category of microbending is
the extrinsic microbending (EM) due to stresses or deforma-
tions by external thermal or mechanical perturbations inside a
cable.
For IM, one may describe the glass portion of the optical fiber
as a glass beam placed inside an elastic medium of the secondary
coating layer shell [14], [15]. Because thermal expansion coef-
ficient of the secondary coating is much higher than that of the
glass, the glass beam is under a compressive strain εf . If the εf
is larger than the strain εm that the glass beam can tolerate, the
glass beam would buckle. One can define the buckling strain as
εd = εf − εm . If εd is large enough, it may cause attenuation
penalties due to buckling [15].
To develop a model for the IM sensitivity, one needs to model
the strain caused by the curing of the secondary coating during
fiber drawing process, εcuring
f and the strain caused by the
cooling of the secondary coating, εthermal
f . To describe effects
of both curing and cooling of secondary coating on the strain, we
introduce an effective temperature change dubbed ΔTef f such
that
εf = εcuring
f + εthermal
f = (αef f − αg ) ∗ ΔTef f (1)
where αg is the thermal expansion coefficient of the glass beam
and αef f is the thermal expansion coefficient of the composite
beam that can be described as:
   
αg Eg rg2 + αp Ep rp2 − rg2 + αs Es rs2 − rp2
αef f =     (2)
Eg rg2 + Ep rp2 − rg2 + Es rs2 − rp2
where, the subscripts g, p and s subscripts refer to glass, primary
and secondary and E, α and r refer to Elastic Modulus, coeffi-
cient of thermal expansion and radius, respectively. Defining the
value of ΔTef f min as the minimum ΔTef f which causes glass
buckling in the standard 242 μm coated fiber, we would be able to
LI et al.: REDUCED COATING DIAMETER FIBERS FOR HIGH DENSITY OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS 1001

evaluate a New Fiber Design (NFD), i.e., with different coating

moduli and diameters, and compare it with the standard 242 μm
fiber. Specifically, for the same refractive index profile design
of the glass, assuming the IM sensitivity is a function of the
buckling strain, we evaluate the buckling strain of a NFD εN d
FD
.
If the buckling strain εdNF D
is larger than the buckling strain of
standard 242 μm fiber ε242 d , the NFD has higher IM sensitivity
and vice versa. It should be noted that in evaluating the IM
sensitivity of new fiber design, for simplicity, we consider only
the effect of design modifications on the εthermal
f and neglect the
effect of design modifications on the εcuring
f in (1). Though we
expect that this assumption would lead to underestimation of the
IM sensitivity as any design modification which would increase
the value of εthermal
f should increase the value of εcuring
f too.
242
The IM sensitivity caused by εd NF D
and εd can be further
described by the concept of radius of curvature, which causes
bending loss. Radius of curvature can be thought as the radius
of a circle having the same curvature as a portion of the glass
beam and is correlated to εd [15] by:
 1/4
rg πEg
ρb = (3)
2 ε2d κ
To calculate the buckling strain εd = εf − εm we can use
(1) for εf and estimate εm [15]

κ
εm = (4)
πEg
Fig. 3. (a) The Intrinsic and (b) the Extrinsic Microbending sensitivity as
where: a function of the glass diameter for different fiber diameters. Assumptions:
Eg , Ep , Es = 72000, 0.5, 1000 MPa, νp = 0.3, αg , αp , αs =
4πEp (1 − νp ) (3 − 4νp ) 0.1, 100, 100 ppm.
κ =   (5)
(r /r )2 −1
(1 + νp ) (3 − 4νp )2 ln rfp − (r p/r f )2 +1
r
p f

and ν refers to Poisson ratio. Since the IM loss depends on
ρ242
the bending radius, for simplicity, we used the ratio ρNbF D as a
b
surrogate to describe the IM sensitivity of a NFD compared to the
standard fiber design with the assumption that the larger the ratio
the larger the IM sensitivity. However, the actual IM loss depends
not only on the glass and coating mechanical properties but also
on the fiber refractive index profile design. More complicated
calculations are needed to quantify the IM loss.
Fig. 3(a) shows the effect of glass diameter on the IM sensi-
tivity for different coating diameters. In this figure, the primary
to secondary ratio is defined as the thickness of primary coating
layer divided by the thickness of the secondary coating layer.
It should be noted that in the plots when the IM sensitivity is
zero, it means that εd < 0 and the buckling does not occur. If the
IM sensitivity is to be evaluated for such fiber design options, an
alternative way to define ΔTef f needs to be used by considering
both the thermal and curing effects on the fiber strain. Fig. 3(a)
shows that both the glass diameter and the coating diameter
have large impacts on the fiber’s IM sensitivity. A smaller glass
diameter and a thicker coating diameter increase the IM. For
instance, in a RCF with 80 μm glass diameter and 165 μm
coating diameter, the IM sensitivity is about 6 times higher than
the fiber with the standard cladding and coating diameters. This
explains why the attenuation of the step-index core RCF with
80 μm glass diameter was about 0.5 dB/km at 1550 nm, much
higher than attenuation of the standard single-mode fiber around
0.2 dB/km [10]. The fiber was measured on a 1 km long fiber
that was catenary wound onto a measurement spool of diameter
of 37 cm in accordance with the TIA/EIA-455 standard. This
measurement condition minimizes the external perturbations to
the fiber that causes EM, so the attenuation increase is primarily
due to IM related to the smaller diameter of the cladding. Our
IM modeling results agree qualitatively with this experimental
result. Since the IM sensitivity is defined as the bending radius
ratio, more detailed bending loss modeling is needed to quantify
the absolute IM loss, which is subject to further study. The IM
loss of RCF can be improved by putting a deep index trench in
the clad [13] and reducing the fiber mode field diameter (MFD)
to below 8.5 μm [10]–[12], or by further optimizing the extend
of the cladding reduction. On the other hand, the IM sensitivity
of RCDF is reduced and the MFD can be kept around 9.1 μm,
which is suitable for low loss connectors and splices.
For the EM, one may describe an optical fiber as a composite
beam made of three different materials, i.e., glass, primary and
secondary coating layers. The stiffness of this composite beam
is mainly driven by the stiffness of the glass portion; therefore,
the thermal expansion coefficient of the composite beam is
also mainly driven by the thermal expansion coefficient of the
glass portion. One may also describe an optical fiber placed
inside the cable jacket, as a composite beam placed inside a

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1002 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023

jacket shell that has a much higher thermal expansion coefficient

than that of the composite beam. When the composite beam is
under a compressive strain due to temperature changes or lateral
mechanical pressures, the composite beam is deformed that leads
to microbending loss. To analyze the EM sensitivity, we use the
microbending model in Ref. [16] that includes the mechanical
properties of both glass and coating layers. In this model, the
EM is proportional to the power bending spectrum ϕbend . To
develop an expression for the power bending spectrum, Ref. [16]
has described the effect of cable shell on the composite beam
deformations by a known surface morphology pushing on the
composite beam and developed following equation for ϕbend :

f0 x2s σ
ϕbend = (6)
Hg2 D01.125−0.25μ Hs0.25μ−0.125

Assuming the composite beam is wound on a drum with a

radius rD under a tension of τw , the following expressions have
been suggested in [16] for the variables of (6):
r f0 = τw is the lateral pressure on the fiber
rD
r xs = Ep rg is the primary spring constant
r −r
r σ and μ p= g3 are related to the drum surface characteristics
and are assumed to be the same for different fiber designs
r Hg = πEg rg4 is the glass stiffness
4
r D0 = Ep + Es (rs −r3 p )3 is the lateral rigidity of the fiber
rs
r Hs = πEs rs4 −rp4 is the secondary stiffness
4 function of glass diameter for different secondary Young’s modulus. Assump-
In the above definitions, E and r represent the Young’s modu-
lus and the radius, respectively, and the subscripts g, p and s refer
to the glass, the primary and secondary coatings, respectively.
Like the approach for the IM sensitivity model, one may compare
the EM sensitivity of a NFD with the EM sensitivity of the
242
standard 242 um fiber design, using the ratio ϕN bend /ϕbend .
FD
Fig. 3(b) shows the EM sensitivity as a function of glass di-
ameter for different coating diameters. A smaller glass diameter
and a thinner coating diameter increase the EM sensitivity. It is
interesting to note that for a small fiber OD case, such as the one
with fiber OD of 155 μm, there seems to be an optimum glass
diameter for EM sensitivity. This observation can be explained
by considering the effect of primary thickness and glass OD on
the EM sensitivity simultaneously. With a fixed fiber OD and pri-
mary to secondary thickness ratio, increasing the glass diameter
leads to a decrease in the primary thickness. According to the
EM sensitivity model, the sensitivity is inversely proportional
to both the primary coating thickness and the glass diameter.
Therefore, in Fig. 3(b), for large fiber glass OD cases, the glass
diameter is the dominant mechanism to drive EM sensitivity
and for small fiber OD cases, the effect of the primary coating
thickness in driving the EM sensitivity becomes significant as
well. Therefore, for the small fiber OD cases, there is an optimum
glass diameter for the EM sensitivity.
To reduce the EM sensitivity, a softer primary coating can
be used. For instance, Fig. 4(a) and (b) show how the EM
sensitivity changes with the different primary and secondary
Young’s modulus. For the primary Young’s modulus below 0.25
MPa, the EM sensitivity becomes much lower as shown in
Fig. 4. (a) Extrinsic Microbending sensitivity as a function of glass for
different primary Young’s modulus. (b) Extrinsic Microbending sensitivity as a
tions: Eg , Es = 72000, 1000 MPa.
Fig. 4(a). On the other hand, the secondary Young’s modulus
does not affect the EM much as shown in Fig. 4(b).
In addition to optimizing the coating materials, the EM sensi-
tivity can be improved by using bend-insensitive trench-assisted
refractive index profile designs [13]. Also, from (6), the loss
increase due to the EM depends on external forces. Therefore,
cable designs play an important role in minimizing the EM
loss. To improve the EM performance for RCDF, it is critical
to minimize the external force applied to the fiber in the cable.
In summary, we have demonstrated in this section that the
microbending attenuation sensitivity can be divided into two
categories, i.e., the IM sensitivity which solely depends on the
optical fiber glass and coating structures and the EM sensitivity
which depends on both optical fiber glass, coating, and optical
cable structures. For a reduced diameter fiber design to minimize
the microbending sensitivity, the first step is to choose a cladding
diameter and coating diameters to ensure an acceptable IM
performance while minimizing the EM sensitivity. A good IM
criterion is that the measured attenuation without significant
external perturbation should be similar to the that of a fiber
with the standard cladding and coating diameters, i.e., 125 μm
cladding diameter, and 190/242 μm primary/secondary coating
diameters. The best condition for IM would be a 1 km long fiber
that was catenary wound onto a measurement spool of diameter
of 37 cm in accordance with the TIA/EIA-455 standard. In this
study, we choose the measurement condition as our standard

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LI et al.: REDUCED COATING DIAMETER FIBERS FOR HIGH DENSITY OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
winding condition of fiber on a shipping reel (diameter of 15
cm) to test fiber IM performance. For a fiber on shipping reel,
we have found the external perturbation is minimal. Also, this
condition is convenient because all our production fibers are
wound on shipping reels and measured for attenuation before
shipping to customers. We will show in Section IV RCDF
examples with coating diameters between 140 to 175 μm with
the same attenuation as the standard 242 μm coating diameter on
the shipping reel. However, for coating diameter of less than 140
μm, some EM effects can show up on shipping reel as the fiber
is more microbending sensitive. The second step is to choose
a cable design that can minimize the external perturbations
to the fiber to reduce EM, which ensures an acceptable cable
attenuation performance. Since the fiber diameter of RCDF is
much smaller than the standard fiber, it offers cable design
flexibility to minimize the EM while increasing the fiber density.
We will illustrate this with results from a loose tube cable trial
using RCDF.
B. Mechanical Reliability
Fiber mechanical reliability is another factor to consider for
reduced diameter fibers. In fiber handling and cabling processes,
fibers can experience high stress events and can break if flaws are
weaker than a given stress level. Proof testing is used to ensure
that the fiber strength distribution has a minimum strength level
[17]. For terrestrial applications, the proof test stress is 700 MPa
(100 kpsi), which is required for RCDF [17].
For RCDF, another mechanical reliability factor to consider
is coating damage resistance. Contact damage to the coating can
penetrate through coatings to damage glass during fiber handling
and processing, causing fiber failures. Although there are no
standards on the requirements and test procedure for coating
puncture resistance, we use the coating indentation test method
to compare coating resistance to damage. The key requirements
for coating damage resistance are that no breaks occur during
fiber handling and cabling processes, and that the fiber can
survive cable mechanical tests such as tensile and crush tests.
For RCDF, the coating puncture resistance can be improved by
using better coating material designs, which will be discussed
further in Section IV-B. To avoid coating damage, it is necessary
to avoid particles and keep the pulleys and rollers clean during
fiber handling and cabling processes.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL FIBER RESULTS
We made RCDF with different refractive index profile designs
and different coating diameters ranging from 125 to 175 μm. We
used three profile designs as shown schematically in Fig. 5: a
step-index core with a single matched clad; a graded-index core
with dual clad layers; and a step-index core with a low index
trench. Among them, the bending sensitivity is reduced from
the matched clad to the dual clad and to the trench design, but
the profile complexity increases.
In order to put uniform thin coatings on a fiber with good
concentricity, it is necessary to control carefully the process
parameters including diameter of glass fiber, diameter of sizing
die, draw speed, material properties of the coating fluid and
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1003
Fig. 5. Schematics of profiles designs used in RCDFs.
delivery pressure. We have developed a model through com-
putational fluid dynamics to understand and optimize the thin
coating process. Through optimization of material properties
and process parameters, we can put the desired coating thickness
on fiber with excellent uniformity and concentricity.
Fig. 6 shows cross section images of RCDF with different
coating diameters. The coating materials used for these fibers
are standard coating materials for our commercial fibers. The
primary coating Young’s modulus is 0.81 MPa, and the sec-
ondary coating Young’s modulus is 1751 MPa. Fig. 6(a)–(c) are
single coated fibers with coating diameters of about 125, 140
and 156 μm, respectively. For the coating diameter of 125 μm
in Fig. 6(a), the glass diameter is reduced to 115 μm, while the
glass diameter in Fig. 6(b) and 6(c) is the standard 125 μm.
The fibers shown in Fig. 6(d)–(f) have dual coating layers with
the primary coating diameters of 134, 141 and 158 μm, respec-
tively, and the secondary coating diameters of 142, 162 and 172
μm, respectively. The RCDF in Fig. 6 show excellent coating
concentricity. The concentricity errors for both the primary and
secondary coatings are less than 2 μm with an average of 0.84
μm.
A. Fiber Optical Properties
The fibers were characterized for cable cutoff wavelengths,
MFD and attenuation. Table I summarizes the results. The fiber
cable cutoff wavelength and MFD were measured using the
standard FOTP procedures. The attenuation was measured on
fiber wound on a standard shipping spool of 15 cm in diameter
with 70 g winding tension. Table I shows that the cable cutoff
wavelengths and MFD are within the typical distributions for
standard single-mode fibers, i.e., cable cutoff wavelength be-
tween 1180 to 1260 nm, and MFD between 8.8 to 9.6 μm, except
that the cable cutoff for the 125 μm coated fiber is a little lower
due to the smaller core size because the fiber glass diameter is
scaled down to 115 μm. All the fibers show good attenuation
below 0.23 dB/km (below G.652D 0.3 dB/km specification)
with all three profile designs, and with coating diameters from
125 to 175 μm. The dual-coated fibers with diameter of greater
than 140 μm have attenuation below 0.19 dB/km, similar to
the attenuation of our dual-coated fibers with 242 μm coating
diameter, which indicates that the EM contribution is minimal.
These attenuation results on shipping reel confirm that the RCDF
have excellent IM performance as predicted by our IM model.
1004 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Fig. 6. Cross-section images of fibers with different coating diameters: (a) 125 μm single coating; (b) 140 μm single coating; (c) 156 μm single coating;
(d) 134/142 μm dual coating; (e) 141/162 μm dual coating; (f) 158/172 μm dual coating.

TABLE I
MEASURED CABLE CUTOFF WAVELENGTHS, MFD AND ATTENUATION OF FIBERS WITH DIFFERENT COATING DIAMETERS

For coating diameters below 140 μm with a single coating layer,

the attenuation increases slightly with the decrease of coating
diameter, which could be due to slight EM as a result of the
winding tension. Nevertheless, the attenuation is low enough for
short length applications such as connector jumpers and short
reach transmission. The fiber with a fluorine (F) trench also
meets the ITU-T G.657.A1 and A2 bending requirements and
is expected to have better EM performance in cables. The silica
(Si) core fiber shows an attenuation of 0.160 dB/km which shows
that ultra-low loss is feasible with RCDF.
The good attenuation results of RCDF measured on shipping
spools support our IM modeling results, which show that a thin-
ner coating reduces the IM sensitivity. Another phenomenon we
observed is that RCDF can have higher fiber cutoff wavelengths.
The fiber cutoff is an indicator of how well the light is guided in
the fiber. A higher cutoff wavelength means that the fundamental
mode is better guided in the core. The fiber cutoff wavelength is
measured on a 2 m long fiber with a 280 mm loop, while the cable
cutoff wavelength is measured on 22 m long fiber with one 280
mm loop and two 80 mm loops. We measured a 142 μm single
coated fiber; and the measured 2-m fiber cutoff and 22-m cable Fig. 7. (a) Measured 2-m fiber cutoff and 22-m cable cutoff spectra for the 140
μm single coated fiber. (b) Measured fiber attenuation spectra with overfilled
cutoff spectra are shown in Fig. 7(a). We see several transmission and single-mode launch conditions for the 140 μm single coated fiber.
bands in the fiber cutoff spectrum, which indicates guiding of
higher order modes through the glass-coating structure. The
measured attenuation spectrum using a 2-m cutback shows cable cutoff measurement and do not cause any problems in long
similar behavior due to the guiding of higher order modes in the length transmission cables. For the attenuation measurement, a
2-m fiber as shown in Fig. 7(b). However, we do not see these clean spectrum can be obtained by using a single-mode launch
higher order modes in the cable cutoff spectrum, which indicates condition or using a cutback length of greater than 22 m as shown
that they are eliminated by the bends and longer length in the in the dash line in Fig. 7(b).
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LI et al.: REDUCED COATING DIAMETER FIBERS FOR HIGH DENSITY OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
Fig. 8. (a) Measured extrinsic microbending loss as a function of the external
force applied to fibers with various coating thicknesses. (b) Attenuation change
rate with external force as a function of the ratio of the primary coating thickness
over the MFD.
In general, we can observe higher order modes in fibers with
coating below 150 μm, which suggests that a thin coating layer
can guide light in fiber even though the coating has higher
refractive index than that of the glass core and cladding. A possi-
ble explanation for the guiding mechanism is the anti-resonant
effect that is used in hollow core fibers. Indeed, transmission
bands can be estimated using anti-resonant conditions. To further
understand the guiding mechanism, we performed modeling on
the fiber with a 140 μm coating. The modeling results support
the antiresonant guiding mechanism [6].
For EM sensitivity, we tested RCDF using a method of sand-
paper on a fixed drum. In this test, the fiber is wound on a drum
covered with a sandpaper at varying tensions. The contact force
between the fiber and the sandpaper is calculated by
T in a wide temperature range, we measured RCDF attenuation
F = (7)
R
where T is the winding tension, and R is the drum radius.
Fig. 8(a) shows the measured EM loss as a function of the
external force for fibers with different primary and secondary
coating diameters for the dual clad and the trench profile designs.
The fibers with coating diameters of 165, 166 and 178 μm were
colored fibers. Before coloring, the coating diameter were 160
and 170 μm. The fibers with coating diameters of 190, 200 and
242 μm were uncolored fibers. The mechanical properties of the
colored layer are very similar to those of the secondary coating.
As we will see in the microbending result analysis below that
EM sensitivity is determined by the primary coating, the colored
layer has minimal effect on fiber EM sensitivity, and we can
use colored or uncolored fibers for microbending tests to gauge
EM sensitivity of a fiber design. For each coating diameter, the
attenuation increases linearly with the winding force, which
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1005
Fig. 9 Attenuation change with temperature cycling on loose coiled fibers.
agree with our EM model. As expected from our EM model,
fibers with smaller coating diameters in the microbending tests
have higher EM sensitivity to the external force as shown by the
higher slope. The trench profile has lower EM sensitivity than the
dual clad profile with the same142/178 coating diameters. We
analyzed the dependence of the slope on the fiber and coating
parameters and found that the slope correlates with the ratio
of the primary coating thickness over the MFD as shown in
Fig. 8(b). The EM loss reduction with the primary coating
thickness agrees also with our EM model. From Fig. 8(b), we
can see that the attenuation slope can be reduced by increasing
the primary coating thickness or using a better primary coating
material. The attenuation slope can also be reduced by using
fiber designs with smaller MFD or using fiber design with a
low index trench [13] as used in bend insensitive fibers. From
the discussions above, we see that the microbending test results
agree qualitatively with our EM modeling results, which can
provide directional guidance to the fiber and coating designs for
minimize EM sensitivity.
The EM results indicate that the EM performance depends on
the force applied to the fiber in real cables. If the external force
is less than 0.1 g/mm, the loss increase due to microbending is
negligible. To minimize the EM loss, it is critical to use cable
designs that minimize the external force applied to the fiber for
high density cables using RCDF.
To confirm the low EM attenuation with low external force
changes while the temperature was cycled from −60 to 80 °C
with the fibers deployed in a loose coil configuration. Fig. 9
plots the attenuation change with temperature for fibers with
three coating diameters. The performance for the 165 and 175
μm fibers are very similar to the 242 μm fiber in the loose
coil configuration. The analysis and experimental results sug-
gest that with optimized fiber designs to reduce EM loss and
optimized cable designs to minimize external perturbations,
it is possible to use reduced diameter fibers for high density
cables.
B. Fiber Mechanical Properties
To study the effects of the reduced coating diameter on fiber
strength, we made RCDF with the standard 125 μm glass diam-
eter and different coating diameters and ran them through the
proof test at 100 kpsi. Table II shows the break rate per kilometer
1006
TABLE II
FIBER PROOF TEST RESULTS AT 100 KPSI
Fig. 10. Fiber puncture resistance as a function of secondary coating cross-
sectional area for three different coating systems: commercial coating (Coating
1, black data points), new coating compositions (Coatings 2 and 3, blue and red
data points).
in the proof test. For the standard coating diameter of 242 μm,
the break rate is 0.04 breaks/km. For the 170 and 160 μm coating
diameters, the break rate increases slightly to between 0.06 and
0.08. However, the break rate of the 140 μm coated fiber is much
higher. We performed break source analysis and found that post
coating puncture or abrasion damage is the main fiber failure
mechanism. It is worthwhile to point out that the fibers were
made in the R&D lab without a rigorous environment control. A
better control of the fiber drawing environment such as in fiber
production is expected to improve the proof test performance
with reduced fiber break rate. A very recent draw run was made
with an improved control of environmental particulates and a
total of 700 km of the 160 μm coated fiber was drawn. The break
rate at 100 kpsi was significantly reduced to 0.02 breaks/km,
which is close to the normal break level in the R&D facility for
the standard 242 μm coated fiber.
We also tested puncture resistance of RCDF using a method
similar to the one described in Ref. [18]. In our tests, a diamond
wedge indenter with an included angle of 75° was driven into
the coated fiber resulting in a load drop when the secondary
coating ruptured. Using this method, we tested fibers with
different coating diameters using different coating materials.
Fig. 10 plots the average puncture load at which the fiber fails
as a function of the secondary coating cross-sectional area. The
black data points were obtained from fibers with the coating
materials used for our commercial standard single-mode fibers.
The puncture load increases linearly with the secondary coating
cross-sectional area for the same coating material, and as a result,
a thinner secondary coating is more susceptible to damage.
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023
TABLE III
MEASURED TENSILE PROPERTIES FOR THREE COATINGS
TABLE IV
MEASURED PROPERTIES FOR THREE COATINGS ON CORNING LEAF GLASS OF
125 μM, AND PRIMARY AND SECONDARY COATING DIAMETERS OF 190 AND
242 μM
However, it is possible to use different coating compositions
with increased fracture toughness (KIC ), ductility, and hardness
to improve the puncture resistance [19], [20], [21]. In Fig. 10,
we show new coating compositions (Coatings 2 and 3, blue
and red data points), which reveal a significantly improved
puncture load versus a commercial coating (Coating 1, black
data points). Measured tensile properties for these coatings are
listed in Table III, which show that the puncture resistant Coating
2 and Coating 3 exhibited high fracture toughness, modulus,
elongation at failure, and yield strength. Coating 2 increased the
maximum puncture load relative to the commercial coating from
15 to 32 g for an outer coating diameter of 165 μm, which is
comparable to that for the coating diameter of 200 μm used in
commercial products. By improving the puncture resistance of
the coating via innovative compositions, we demonstrate that it
is possible to make RCDF with a diameter of around 165 μm to
meet the mechanical protection requirements.
To compare the effects of these coatings on select standard
fiber properties, measured properties for standard coating ge-
ometry fibers drawn with Corning LEAF refractive index profile
design [22] are shown in Table IV for the three coatings. All coat-
ings exhibited acceptable strip force values within the range be-
tween 0.29–1.96 lbf specified by the Telcordia GR-20 document,
and wire drum microbending testing [23] revealed that Coating
2 had higher microbending sensitivity while Coating 3 provided
slightly lower microbending sensitivity. Further optimizations
are under way to get both improved puncture resistance and low
microbending sensitivity.
C. Fiber Cabling Performance
To determine the fiber handleability and cable performance
of RCDF, we conducted a cable trial in a loose tube cable on
both 160 μm and 170 μm coated fibers using standard coating
materials for our commercial fibers. Both the dual clad and the
trench profile designs were included in the cable trial. Fig. 11
shows the structure of this loose tube cable comprising a cable
jacket, 8 tubes with 24 fibers inside, and a glass reinforced
polymer (GRP) rod in the center. The cable had an outside
diameter OD of 6.1 mm, and an inside diameter ID of 4.9 mm,
LI et al.: REDUCED COATING DIAMETER FIBERS FOR HIGH DENSITY OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
Fig. 11. Structure of an optical fiber loose tube cable.
Fig. 12. Maximal attenuation changes as a function of fiber free space for 160
and 170 μm coating diameters with the dual clad and trench profile designs.
and a wall thickness of 0.5 mm. The buffer tube had an OD of
1.45 mm, an ID of 1.24 and 1.265 mm, which correspond to a
free space of 38–46%, which is defined as:
At − Af
Fs = (8)
At
where At is the inner area the buffer tube, and Af is total area
of all the fibers added together. The fiber density was about
7 fibers/mm2 . The fibers were handled and processed during
cabling using the standard tolling and procedures designed for
250 μm coated fibers without any issues, which shows that the
RCDF are compatible with 250 μm coated fibers. Before the
fibers were put into the cable, they were colored using an offline
coloring process without any issues. The colored layer added
a thickness of 6-8 μm to the fiber coating diameter. No fiber
breaks were observed during the cabling processing including
the buffering, stranding, and jacketing steps.
The cabled attenuation for all the fibers at room temperature
in the cable was good and met our requirement of <0.25 dB/km
at 1550 nm. The microbending performance was determined by
cycling the temperature between −40 °C to 70 °C according
to the IEC 60794-1-22 standard. The maximum allowed atten-
uation change by the standard is 0.25 dB/km at 1550 nm. We
use a maximum of 0.15 dB/km as a safeguard to ensure that the
attenuation change of our fibers is below the standard allowed
value. Fig. 12 shows the maximal attenuation change at 1550 nm
as function of free space between fibers. Using the limit of 0.15
dB/km for the maximal attenuation change, we see that the free
space needs to be greater than 46% and 41% for the 160 and
170 μm coated fibers with the dual clad design, respectively.
For the 170 μm coated fiber with the trench design, the free
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1007
Fig. 13. Relative fiber density as a function of fiber free space for 160 and 170
μm coating diameters. The reference fiber is the standard 250 μm coated fiber
with a free space of 38%.
space can be reduced to about 40%. The results indicate that
the choosing the right free space is an effective way to ensure
the EM performance for RCDF in a loose tube cable. However,
increasing the free space changes only slightly the relative fiber
density, which is defined as the number of RCDF inside a buffer
tube over the number of the standard 250 μm coated fibers inside
the same buffer tube. Using (8), we can derive the relative density
Nr of a RCDF with a free space Fs relative to the standard fiber
of 250 μm with a free space of Fsr :
1 − Fs Df2 r
Nr = (9)
1 − Fsr Df2
where Df is the coated fiber diameter of RCDF, and Dfr is the
coated fiber diameter of the reference fiber, which is 250 μm.
Fig. 13, plots the relative fiber density versus the free space for
160 and 170 μm coated fibers, where the reference fiber is the
standard 250 μm coated fiber with 38% free space. The results
show that the RCDF with 160 and 170 μm coating diameter
could meet the cable microbending sensitivity requirement with
slightly larger free space but still with an overall density increase
by a factor of about 2 compared with the standard 250 μm
coated fibers. The RCDF cable also showed good performance
in mechanical tests. No fiber break was detected during cable
tensile and crush testing.
It is worthwhile to point out that since the cable structure
used in the trial was not designed for the 160 or 170 μm coated
fibers, the results might not be straightforwardly applied to more
stringent cable structures with higher densities. More design and
experimental work need to be done to optimize the cable design
and performance using RCDF around 160–170 μm diameters.
V. STRIPPING-FREE DIRECT FIBER INSERTION CONNECTORS
One application of RCDF is stripping-free direct ferrule inser-
tion for making fiber connectors. For making optical connectors,
the termination process always starts with stripping the coating
of the fiber and exposing a section of cladding to insert into
and bond with the micro hole of the connector ferrule. How-
ever, when bare fiber is inserted into the ceramic ferrule, any
mechanical contact can result in flaws that can cause immediate
fiber breaks and long-term connector reliability issues. We have
shown in Section IV a thin-coated fiber with 125 μm coating
1008 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 41, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Fig. 14. Microscope image of the green dye thin-coated fiber connector end
face. Fig. 15. Measured insertion losses and return loses of 12 randomly selected
connector pairs.

diameter. We have proposed using this type of thin-coated fiber

for making low-loss connectors using direct ferrule insertion to
avoid process and reliability issues [24].
In the direct ferrule insertion connector process, a thin-coated
fiber is inserted into a connector ferrule micro hole and bonded
with epoxy. Because the fiber glass cladding is never exposed,
there is a significantly reduced risk of flaw generation or fiber
break even if there is friction or other contact damage during
the fiber insertion into the ferrule. Additionally, any damage
which is commonly introduced during the coating stripping
process is also avoided. The bonded fiber ferrule assembly is
then polished and inserted into the connector housing to finish
the connectorization process. A microscope image of a polished
connector end face is depicted in Fig. 14, where the thin-coating
cross section along with a small epoxy bond line is shown. The Fig. 16. Average fiber height after polishing for 12-color thin-coated LC fiber
connectors.
coating thickness is highly uniform.
We made 12 connector samples using thin-coated fibers with
the direct ferrule insertion process. The fibers have a step index
core profile with matched clad as shown in Fig. 5. The glass di-
ameter is 115 μm, and the coating diameter is 125 μm. The fiber
protrusion heights were near the maximum of 100 nm set by the
IEC standardization on single-mode connectors. Our numerical
simulation using a finite-element-analysis (FEA) method found
that a connector using thin-coated fiber could tolerate higher
fiber protrusion up to 230 nm if using the stress of standard fiber
as a reference. This is another advantage of using thin coated
fiber in connectors because the coating layer combined with the
epoxy layer absorb more pressure allowing more deformation
compared with a standard fiber connector. However, long-term
stability of fiber protrusion on connector performance needs to
Fig. 17 Core-to-ferrule concentricity of (slate, red, yellow, and violet) thin-
be studied further. The connector geometry parameters such as coated fiber LC connectors.
fiber protrusion height, radius of curvature and apex offset all
met standard requirements. The measured core concentricity of
the connectors was less than 500 nm due to excellent thickness because it adds another coating layer that changes the coating
uniformity of the thin-coated fibers. The measured insertion diameter. Therefore, we developed colored coating materials
losses and return losses at 1550 nm of 12 randomly selected that can be used in the fiber coating process during fiber draw.
connector pairs are shown in Fig. 15. The insertion losses are We made fibers with 125 μm coating diameter using 12 colored
less than 0.2 dB, and the return losses are less than −49 dB. coatings. The coatings had excellent adhesion to the fiber glass
For connector applications in fiber cables, colored fibers are cladding, concentricity and uniformity. To evaluate the perfor-
required for fiber identification. For thin-coated fibers for con- mance of colored thin-coated fibers for direct fiber insertion
nector applications, an offline coloring process is not suitable connectors, we built eight single fiber LC connectors for each

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LI et al.: REDUCED COATING DIAMETER FIBERS FOR HIGH DENSITY OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
color. After curing at 150 °C for an hour and polishing, the
fiber protrusion heights of connectors were measured and are
shown in Fig. 16. The fiber heights are beyond IEC standards
on SMF contact connectors, which is 100 nm for maximum
fiber protrusion. However, based on the FEA results we reported
before [24], 125 μm thin-coated fiber connectors can tolerate
higher fiber protrusion than normal single-mode fiber contact
connectors with a maximum of 230 nm. The core-to-ferrule con-
centricity of four randomly selected color is plotted in Fig. 17.
Our measurements showed that the stripping-free connector
assemblies had similar mechanical and optical performances to
those of uncolored fiber connectors.
VI. CONCLUSION
We have reviewed recent progress on RCDF and presented
new modeling and experimental results. We have discussed key
design considerations for RCDF to improve fiber microbending
performance and mechanical reliability. We made RCDF with
coating diameters from 125 to 175 μm and presented their optical
and mechanical properties. In addition, we conducted a cable
trial using RCDF with 160 and 170 μm coating diameters and
showed no issues from the fiber handling and cabling processes.
Our analysis and experimental results suggest that by optimizing
both the fiber and coating designs, RCDF with coating diameter
around 165 μm may be a promising candidate for high density
cable applications. We also studied thin 125 μm coated fibers
for making low-loss connectors with direct ferrule insertion
without stripping the coating. This simple termination process
eliminates flaws caused by the mechanical coating stripping
process and reduces fiber breaks during the connectorization
process, which is promising for making high density connectors
with high reliability.
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