What is a fiber fusion splice?

A fiber fusion splice is a permanent joint between two fiber ends created by melting them together with an electric arc, forming a continuous glass bond with very low signal loss — typically ≤ 0.02 dB on single-mode fiber with a core-alignment splicer like the D YEDEMC Ai-9.

Fusion splicing is the standard method for permanent fiber connections in FTTH, telecom, and access network builds because the fused joint introduces far less loss than a mechanical splice or connector pair. The process requires a fiber cleaver to prepare flat, clean end-faces, then a fusion splicer to align the cores and fire the arc. Core alignment splicers — which image the actual light-carrying core before the arc fires — consistently outperform cladding-alignment machines on loss numbers.

• Target fusion splice loss on single-mode fiber (core alignment): ≤ 0.02 dB on the D YEDEMC Ai-9.
• Target fusion splice loss on multimode fiber (core alignment): ≤ 0.03 dB on the D YEDEMC Ai-9.
• Any fusion splice reading above 0.2 dB on an OTDR trace warrants a re-splice.
• D YEDEMC Ai-9 splice cycle time: 5 seconds per splice after fiber preparation.
• Core alignment uses image magnification up to 320x to align fiber cores before the arc fires.