Fiber Preparation and Alignment -- Mechanics of Fusion Splicing -- Optics of Fusion Splicing -- Splice Loss Estimation and Fiber Imaging -- Splice Strength, Reliability, and Packaging -- Splice Measurement and Characterization -- Splice Process Optimization and Special Splicing Strategies -- Fusion Splicing of Specialty Fiber -- Splicer Hardware: State of the Art.This book is an up-to-date treatment of optical fiber fusion splicing incorporating all the recent innovations in the field. It provides a toolbox of general strategies and specific techniques that the reader can apply when optimizing fusion splices between novel fibers. It specifically addresses considerations important for fusion splicing of contemporary specialty fibers including dispersion compensating fiber, erbium-doped gain fiber, polarization maintaining fiber, and microstructured fiber. Finally, it discusses the future of optical fiber fusion splicing including silica and non-silica based optical fibers as well as the trend toward increasing automation. Whilst serving as a self-contained reference work, abundant citations from the technical literature will enable readers to readily locate primary sources.