Local measurement of optical-fiber splice loss by light launching at spliced point

A new local measuring system for multimode optical-fiber splice loss is described, which does not need any far-end apparatus. In the system, launching of light into the core at the spliced point is based on light scattering resulting from core misalignment and/or deformation at the splice. It was confirmed experimentally that the intensity of the launched light is proportional to the splice loss. A loss-measuring accuracy of +/-0.1 dB was obtained for fusion splice losses under 0.3 dB.