Ultra-low-loss tapered optical fibers with minimal lengths

We design and fabricate ultra-low-loss tapered optical fibers (TOFs) with minimal lengths. We first optimize variations of the torch scan length using the flame-brush method for fabricating TOFs with taper angles that satisfy the adiabaticity criteria. We accordingly fabricate TOFs with optimal shapes and compare their transmission to TOFs with a constant taper angle and TOFs with an exponential shape. The highest transmission measured for TOFs with an optimal shape is in excess of 99.7% with a total TOF length of only 23mm, whereas TOFs with a constant taper angle of 2mrad reach 99.6% transmission for a 63mm TOF length.