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Applications & materials
Linden Photonics specializes in the design and manufacture of rugged, robust cables for specialty (often harsh) environments, that are strong but thin. We began in the underwater cable market, which is a very hostile environment for fibers. Fish bites, crab claws, high pressure and moisture ingress are but some of the dangers our cables are designed to withstand. Over the years we have worked with companies putting our fibers in planes, satellites, tied to weather balloons and in high radiation environments. For virtually any hostile space, we can design a fiber optic cable that will work there.
LCP stands for Liquid Crystal Polymer, not to be confused with Liquid Crystal Displays. This is a class of resin that is a building block for our cable designs. When extruded over a fiber, the LCP provides many protective qualities advantageous to performance requirements. It has high strength, moisture resistance, superior crush strength and radiation resistance.
We can design to virtually any fiber optic standard. Typically our designs are compliant to ESCC Spec 2236010, NASA-STD-8739.5, SAE AS5382 and Boeing 5M2551.
If you can think it up, we can package it in our line of LCP packaging. LCPs provide an inexpensive, functionally hermetic packaging for optoelectronics of many types. Linden Photonics has a patent pending solution to sealing an optical and electrical port in an LCP package, which allows us to completely protect your device.
Strength & length
This depends on the design, but Linden builds cables ranging from 50 lbs to 30,000 lbs breaking strength. Our cables are typically single channel round cables designed to be as small as possible, yet deliver high strength for their size. As an example, we make a cable that is only 0.030” in diameter and has a breaking strength of >50 lbs.
We have several different methods to increase tensile strength, including adding layers of braided Kevlar when tensile strength requirements are greater than 300 lbs.
Because our cables are made using a standard extrusion process, their length is only governed by the length of the fiber. Standard fiber optics comes in 25,000 m or 50,000 m spools. We regularly supply cables in excess of 20,000 m in length.
Fiber & construction
We can make a cable using any kind of base fiber. We can help you choose the fiber or you can supply the fiber to us for cabling. We have made cables with singlemode, multimode, silicone coated, carbon coated, polyimide coated and Fiber Bragg Grating inscribed fibers.
Our basic 0.030” tether cable is designed as a disposable high strength tether. For a more flexible, non-hockling design we choose from various polymers that provide a protective layer over the fiber which prevents it from bending too tightly and pinching the fiber. The materials and constructions we choose also have a self-release quality that causes potential knots to open up and straighten out. Imagine pulling a garden hose across your yard: tension on a loop can kink it and stop the water. When this happens to a fiber the results can be catastrophic and irreversible. Our Non-Kink designs prevent this and protect your optical conductor.
While we typically make single channel cables, we have made cables with 3 and 6 channels.
Our cable can be terminated with standard terminating tools, and because it does not use Kevlar as a strength member, many customers have found it much easier to work with and quicker to terminate.
Underwater & buoyancy
We make our cables buoyant by using low density jacket materials. Linden engineers are expert at material selection, with a wide range of experience with polymers that will give your cable the exact properties you are looking for.
Pressure will affect any buoyant cable design. As depth increases, pressure increases and any material is compressed and becomes denser. Calculations based on depth, pressure, water and cable density can be made to assure your cable is buoyant in your critical work zone.
Avionic & radiation
Linden Photonics builds an avionic grade, high temperature fiber optic cable tested to MIL Spec standards that weighs 4 g/m. We also make light weight cables for weather kit tethers and underwater ROV and munitions tethers. Our lowest weight high strength cable is 0.7 g/m, and we have made a small buoyant cable that weighs just 0.02 g/m.
We have tested our cables up to 1 MRad of Co-60 radiation with no degradation in mechanical performance. Our customers have tested our cables with the same results to 80 MRad. LCPs are highly resistant to radiation and have been tested to 5,000 MRad with only a 5% decrease in tensile strength.
Linden has tested LCPs for resistance to both gamma radiation and high energy protons.
Ordering
Many of our cables are stocked, and custom short-run designs are available with minimums from 300 m.
Have an application in mind?
Tell us what the cable has to do — the environment, the load, the length — and our engineers will recommend a catalog cable or design one for you. Short runs from 300 m.