Pigtail

(1) A short length of fiber with a permanently attached device, usually a connector, on one end. (2) A fiber-optic cable assembly consisting of a connector or hardware device (such as a light source package installed by a manufacturer) on one end and an unterminated fiber at the other end. Normally found in applications wherein a splice is convenient for terminating a device with a connector. Also used when the loss characteristics of the connector must be known precisely. For instance, a splice of .03dB might be reliably predicted and controlled, but the variability of most commercially available terminations is unacceptable, so a precharacterized cable assembly is cut into a pigtail and attached to the device through splicing.