Specialty Photonics Division

Your Optical Fiber Solutions Partner™

Optical Fiber, Cables, Components and Modules

Industries and Applications

Government, Aerospace and Defense

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OFS Defense

OFS products have a long history of serving the defense market with custom and standard fibers, cables and assemblies frequently deployed in harsh environments. Our products perform with high reliability in commercial and military aircraft, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), ground and undersea communications. Specialty fibers in reduced diameters, polarization maintaining design as well as fiber Bragg gratings enable a wide range of sensors. OFS high power building blocks enable reliable fiber lasers and amplifiers. We qualify our defense products to common industry standards or to the specific requirements of individual customers.

OFS is a U.S. company and maintains a military cage code (OMZN3, Vendor #147825582). We comply with all applicable U.S. trade compliance laws and regulations.

Avionics Fibers and Cables

Stringent requirements are a given for many avionics applications. Our extensive selection of coatings, buffers and cabling materials allow our specialty fibers to be configured into light weight, small form factor cables that exhibit stability over high temperature, shock and vibration, as well as resistance to chemicals and solvents. OFS offers solutions for both commercial and military aircraft as well as unmanned air and ground vehicles. Our avionics cables are constructed using harsh environment materials in tight buffer designs that minimize stresses on the fiber during bend. OFS FlightLink™ and FlightGuide^® Cables are offered in 62.5, OM3 or bend optimized single-mode versions. OFS Avioptics® Cable is built around our standard HCS® 200 µm fiber, and has for many years been used in radio systems for aircraft. See the details of these designs in the OFS Avionics Brochure.

Navigation and Sensing

Aircraft, missiles, UAVs, ground vehicles—all use advanced fiber optic navigation technology. For fiber optic gyroscopes and interferometric sensors, OFS offers GyroSil^® PM Sensing Fibers, 80 µm polarization maintaining optical fibers in a variety of wavelengths and coating diameters as well as Erbium-doped fibers used as sources in fiber optic gyros.

OFS manufactures a very wide range of fibers suitable for optical fiber sensors. Not only can we modify the glass dopants and structure to achieve the best optical performance, but our extensive coatings and buffer material options allow those sensors to operate in many harsh environments from the ocean floor to jet engines. Used in combination with Fiber Bragg Gratings, point sensors or sensor arrays can be customized to your requirements. High temperature gratings based sensors can measures temperatures up to 900°C.

High Power

Extensive OFS capabilities in specialty fiber design and manufacture come together with advanced fiber processing technologies in OFS high performance all-fiber combiners, gain modules and cavities for high power lasers and amplifiers. Our high power products offers PM and non-PM devices based on Yb and Er -Yb gain fiber for 1 µm and 1.5 µm applications. Pump combiners in 7 to 19 to 1 configurations using Single-mode, Multimode, or PM optical fiber are available. 

For customized solutions we offer collaboration with OFS Laboratories (Labs) where an extensive laser and amplifier research program is ongoing, (Fiber Laser Development). The Labs prototyping group can provide rapid development and manufacture of fibers as well as combiners, cavities and turn-key lasers and amplifiers in the 10s of units.   OFS has a strong patent portfolio in the area of design and manufacturing processes for fiber, gratings and pump combiners. We possess integration technology that can maximize the performance of fibers and components. We work with partners to offer system integration solutions and custom product needs.

Optical Fibers for Payout Applications and Unmanned Deployments

Payout systems require a fiber optic tether between the launch platform and missile. When the missile is fired from an aircraft, vessel or land-based platform, the highly reliable fiber pays out rapidly from a coiled spool and provides a continuous data path. This same dispensing mode can be used to remotely guide tactical robot systems with real-time, non-line-of-sight video or to observe a target in rugged, obstructed terrain. Employing our portfolio of fiber designs and harsh environment coating options, OFS can provide a customized solution for these applications.