LAUSR

Abstract Environmental, mechanical and optical reliability are basic premises for application of PLC optical splitters. According to temperature and humidity cycling experiment, it demonstrated that insertion loss of PLC optical splitter varies with temperature. Compared to performance at room temperature, the maximum insertion loss change of device is 0.472 dB at 75 °C, and 0.486 dB at −40 °C. A three-dimensional finite element model of PLC chip coupled with fiber array was established to study the effects of temperature on insertion loss. The simulation results match experimental results, indicating that misalignment of PLC chip and fiber array is the main reason for insertion loss change. It is significant to consider the influences of global temperature rather than only paying attention to performance at static temperature when we evaluate the reliability of PLC optical splitters.