Patent ID: 7876994

Claim:
An optical fiber array comprising: m number of optical fibers (where, m is a natural number which is 3 or more) arranged to be mutually parallel; an optical fiber aligning member, on a surface of which, at least m number of grooves are formed in parallel; and a cover, wherein an end portion of the optical fibers arranged is disposed in each groove of the optical fiber aligning member, and is held by the optical fiber aligning member and the cover, and when being held by the optical fiber aligning member and the cover a line segment which has connected a point on an outer periphery in contact with the cover, of the m number of optical fibers is set to be a straight line, and the optical fiber is supported at three points by the groove and the cover, and an angle of formation of the groove is set to be constant for all the grooves, and a depth of the groove is set arbitrarily to differ, and furthermore a cladding diameter of the optical fiber arranged in the groove is set arbitrarily, and by making such an arrangement, a line segment which has connected a center of each of the m number of optical fibers in the groove is set to be an arbitrary non straight line shape.