Frequently Asked Questions

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 balloon, 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 will provide many protective qualities advantageous to performance requirements. It has high strength, moisture resistance, superior crush strength and radiation resistance.

This depends on the design, but Linden builds cables ranging from 50 lbs to over 5,000 lbs breaking strength. Our cable are typically single channel round cables that are 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 the length of our cables are only governed by the length of the fiber. Standard fiber optics comes in 25,000m or 50,000m spools. We regularly supply cables in excess of 20,000 m in length.

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 the following types of fibers: 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 prevent it from bending too tightly so as to pinch the fiber and cause a break. In addition, the materials and constructions we choose have a self release quality that causes any potential knots to open up and straighten out. Imagine a garden hose that you are pulling across your yard. Often, the tension on a loop will cause the hose to kink and prevent water from passing through. When this happens to a fiber, the results can be catastrophic and irreversible. Our non-kink designs prevent this phenomenon and protects 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 that it is much easier to work with and saves terminating time.

We make our cables buoyant by using low density jacket materials. Linden engineers are expert at material selection and we have 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 the depth increases, the pressure increases and thus any material will be compressed and thus become denser. Calculations based on depth, pressure, water and cable density can be made to assure your cable is buoyant in your critical work zone.

Linden Photonics builds an avionic grade cable that has been tested to MIL Spec standards and is a high temperature fiber optic cable. The weight of this cable is 4 g/m. Linden also makes light weight cables that have been used for such applications as weather kits tethers and underwater ROV and munitions tethers. Our lowest weight high strength cable is 0.7 g/m, but we have made a small buoyant cable that weighs just 0.02 g/m.

We have tested our cables up to 1MRad of Co-60 radiation with no degradation in mechanical performance. Our customers have tested our cables with the same results to 80MRad. 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.

We can design to virtually any fiber optic standard, typically our designs are compliant to the following standards:

ESCC Spec 2236010
NASA-STD-8739.5
SAE AS5382
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. This allows us to completely protect your device.

Yes