Microforce sensing for coarse alignment in active fiber pigtailing

A novel approach based on microforce sensing for coarse alignment in active fiber pigtailing is proposed. It is shown that the microforce due to contact between a specially designed force sensor and a geometrical feature on the input surface of an optical device provides useful clues in guiding the fiber to rapidly locate the actual optical path of the optical device. The effectiveness of this approach was demonstrated on a photonic alignment system. These results suggest that microforce sensing can be an effective technique in augmenting conventional approaches for fast and accurate fiber pigtailing in photonic assembly.