Optical circulator sales set for healthy growth

Increasing circulation: fiber optic circulator

The global sales value of fiber optic circulators in optical communications will grow at an average annual rate of 8.4 percent, from this year’s value of almost $230m reaching $313m by 2017. 

These are the conclusions reached in a new market report fromElectroniCast Consultants. The consumption value is forecast to increase with rising quantity growth partially offset by declining average prices.

The fiber optic circulator market is divided into various different port-count configurations: 3-ports, 4-port, and above 4-ports. According to ElectroniCast, 3-port circulators are expected to hold an estimated 80% market share in 2013. More than 70% of the current 3-port circulator market value is used in telecommunication applications.

Telecoms focus

The report states, “Telecommunications is set to maintain its dominant market share lead throughout the forecast period. Specialty applications such as R&D laboratory, sensors, test equipment, oil/gas, and other applications will hold second-place.”

On the up: fiber optic circulator market shares.

ElectroniCast also notes that fiber optic circulators used in military and specialty applications “are typically priced at a relatively huge premium versus the other applications, which is largely attributed to packaging upgrades, such as to cope with harsh environments.” 

Growth in demand for such devices will primarily be driven by increasing deployment of optical fiber in the metro/access network space, the continuing demand for upgrading networks to accommodate rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements, plus the need for additional monitoring and testing of the optical fiber networks will drive the steady consumption of fiber optic circulators.

As terrestrial national backbone and undersea systems approach Tb/s capacities, advanced fiber-optic components, such as fiber optic circulators, are key in enabling DWDM systems with narrow channel spacing to achieve the large numbers of channels required.

Increasing demand

Lion’s share: 3-port circulators.

1625nm 1650nm high performance OTDR Optical Circulators

Fiber optic circulators are used with erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, fiber optic sensor applications, dense WDM (DWDM), optical add/drop multiplexing (OADM), optical time domain reflectometers (OTDR fiber optic test equipment), bi-directional transmission systems, dispersion compensators, and other devices. OF-Link Communications Co., Ltd offers 3 port 1625nm 1650nm OTDR (optical time domain reflectometers) optical circulators, these 1625nm 1650nm fiber optic circulators are designed specially for use in OTDR with very low insertion loss (max.IL is 0.8dB) and high isolation (min. Iso is 38dB), they could be built by Corning SMF-28e or G657A2 Fiber, the circulator has been past the test by some famous OTDR manufacturers.

1300nm 1310nm OCT Broadband optical Circulators

One application of fiber optic circulator is in OCT (optical coherence tomography) which need wideband operating wavelength range. OF-Link Communications Co., Ltd developed 3 port 1310nm broadband optical circulator right for OCT, it features broadband from 1280-1400nm, polarization insensitive, Optical Path Epoxy-free, and high reliability & stability, performs quite well in client’s OCT systems. More OCT broadband Optical Circulator details please refer to http://www.of-link.com/3-port-1310nm-Broadband-OCT-Optical-Circulator_p267.html

1310nm 1480nm 1550nm Multimode Optical Circulators

The 3 port 1310nm or 1550nm Multi-mode Optical Fiber Circulator is a fiber optic component built with 50/125um or 62.5/125um multi-mode fiber.  It allows light to be transmitted in only one direction while blocking the opposite transmttion, it’s light path is port 1 to port 2, and port 2 to port 3. The multimode optical circulators are widely used in optical fiber networks and fiber instruments. You can get more details from http://www.of-link.com/Multi-mode-Optical-Circulators_c64

Polarization Maintaining (PM) Optical Circulators

OF-Link’s polarization maintaining (PM) optical circulator is a fiber optic componet built with PM panda fiber.  It allows light to be transmitted in only one direction while blocking the opposite transmttion, it’s light path is port 1 to port 2, and port 2 to port 3. The PM fiber circulator is widely used in optical fiber networks and amplifiers where polarization maintaining characteristics are needed. High Power handling is available upon request. 980nm, 1030nm, 1040nm, 1053nm, 1064nm, 1080nm, 1310nm, 1480nm, 1550nm, 1625nm, 1650nm polarization maintaining (PM) optical circulators are available. OF-Link also offers broadband polarization maintaining (PM) optical circulators.

High Power Optical Circulators

Nearly most kinds of optical circulators manufactured by OF-Link could be specially built to withstand high power handling to continuous wave 10 Watt, like 1-10W 1310nm high power optical ciruclators, 1-10W 1550nm high power optical ciruclators, 1-10W 1064nm high power optical ciruclators, 1-10W 1650nm high power optical ciruclators, 1-10W 1550nm high power polarization maintaining optical ciruclators, 1-10W 1064nm high power polarization maintaining optical ciruclators and so on.

Non-telecoms and specialty applications of fiber optic circulators used include: inter- and intra-enclosure interconnects; and fiber optic sensors, such as for manufacturing, engineering, military and aerospace, test and measurement, biomed and automotive. They also find applications in sensing and measuring parameters such as mechanical strain, temperature and pressure and detection of chemicals.