What is plastic optical fiber? Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is definitely an optical fiber which is made out of plastic. Because the late 1990s however, much higher-performance POF based on per fluorinated polymers has begun to appear available on the market. Plastic optical fibers are popular Nowadays.

Fiber technology is constantly on the become more flexible and less expensive. Plastic fiber optic cables are made from just one acrylic monofilament and are most efficient when used with visible red status indicator light sources. Plastic fibers are generally more cost effective than glass fiber optic cables and therefore are well suited for applications that need continuous flexing of the fiber. A wide range of fiber optic tips can be found.

In contrast, plastic optical fibers use harmless green or red light that is easily visible towards the eye. They may be safely installed in a house without risk to inquisitive children. A second advantage is their toughness. Plastic optical fibers tend to be thicker than glass optical fibers, a millimeter or more, and could be handled without special tools or techniques. You don’t have to be trained to handle and do the installation. You simply work with scissors, hook it up and it works.

In large-diameter optical fibers, 96% from the cross section is the core that enables the transmission of sunshine. Much like traditional glass optical fiber, POF transmits light with the core of the fiber. The core size POF is in some cases 100 times bigger than glass optical fiber.

plastic optical fiber optic cable

POF has been called the consumer optical fiber since the fiber and associated optical links, connectors, and installation are all inexpensive. The per fluorinated polymer fibers are generally employed for much higher-speed applications for example data center wiring and building LAN wiring. POF, using its large core, continues to be likely to function as the office and residential network media. Its large core permits the utilization of cheap injection-molded plastic connectors which can significantly lower the total link cost. But POF features its own problems. The most crucial obstacle is its high signal loss (attenuation). PMMA has been used because the light guiding core for commercially accessible step-index POF and PMMA’s attenuation is about 100 dB/km. This high attenuation significantly limits POF’s applications in data communication applying a lot more than 100m.

Here is the good news though. Developers have discovered that PF amorphous polymer based gradient-index plastic optical fibers get rid of the attenuation problem with PMMA based plastic fiber. They’ve developed PF-polymer based Gradient-Index (GI) POF with attenuation level of only 10 dB/km. According to theoretical calculation, PF-polymer based GI POF can achieve similar degree of attenuation as silica-based glass fiber of 0.3dB/km.

Having a optimized refractive-index profile within the PF-polymer based GI POF, a lot more than 10Gb/s data transmission speed can be achieved over 1km. This is the metrics of PF-polymer’s low intrinsic loss and low material dispersion. Coupled with this theoretically possible high bandwidth and occasional total link cost, PF-Polymer based gradient-index plastic optical fiber includes a huge potential in fiber optic data communication applications.

With really small diameter, the POF cable is simple to run along skirting boards, under carpets and around tight corners. It offers additional durability for uses in data communications, as well as decoration, illumination and industrial application. FiberStore can supply both simplex and duplex plastic optical fibers. Our standard color is black. Other colors are available upon request.

Source: FiberStore

The plastic optical fiber (POF) constituts that the optical fiber core and cladding are made of plastic material. Compared with large core diameter 50/125um and 62.5/125um quartz glass multimode fiber, plastic optical fiber core diameter is up to 200-1000um, while continuing to use without the optical fiber positioning sleeve cheap injection-molded plastic connector, even The fiber splice SMIC alignment generated the 30um deviation does not affect the coupling loss. It is plastic optical fiber structure gives the quick construction, connecting and low cost. In addition, the core diameter of 100um or larger and it is possible to eliminate noise in the the mold presence of the multimode fiber of quartz glass.

In recent years, Europe and Japan and other countries made important progress in the development of POF fiber. The development of plastic optical fiber, optical loss rate has dropped from 25 to 9 dB/km. Its wavelength has been extended to 870 microns (near infrared light), close to the practical level of the quartz glass fiber. United States developed a the PFX plastic series fiber has excellent anti-radiation performance. In addition, Boston, Massachusetts, fiber developed the Opti-Giga plastic optical fiber is compelling, it is not only lighter than glass, flexible better, lower cost, and data transmission speed of 3 megabits per second in the 100 meters . Such a fiber can also use the refraction of light or optical fibers within the jump way to achieve a higher transmission speed. Now the United States and Europe has plastic optical fiber used for short-distance transmission, such as automotive, medical equipment, copiers.

Japan attaches great importance to the application of plastic optical fiber, several years ago, NEC, Fujitsu, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Inc. 45 optical communications, multimedia products manufacturers jointly announced, will work together to achieve the plastic optical fiber have been successfully developed in Japan practical use. Plastic optical fiber production, Japan is also the worlds largest producers of plastic optical fiber, however, in Europe to promote the development of new applications of plastic optical fiber and fiber inspection standards. The second half of 2001, the European plastic optical fiber industrial development stage, this time to establish a new approach to development of the European plastic optical fiber test and measurement. The worlds first dedicated Plastic Optical Fiber Application Center (POFAC) in Nuremberg, Germany completed. Germany using plastic optical fiber has been developed multimedia bus system MOST (24Mbit/s), and several car manufacturers, the system has been incorporated into their products. BMW has created a record 100m plastic optical fiber in the new 7 series. Europe 2001 plastic fiber Symposium and European Fiber Communication Conference held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. German automotive industry not only to promote the application of plastic optical fiber, but also contributed to the establishment of the plastic optical fiber test and measurement standards.

Japan has also established a plastic optical fiber standards, but these standards to the European Community is invalid. Japanese Industrial Standards is given only for the standard of a new type of plastic optical fiber, a numerical aperture of 0.5, and only the 650nm wavelength. The standard does not mention the different excitation light conditions in the plastic optical fiber, there is no provision must be formed in the plastic optical fiber equilibrium mode distribution.

Plastic optical fiber, compared with the glass fiber, although the light-transmitting differential, light loss is large, the initial ships of 300 dB/km, the transmission optical narrow band (limited to the visible region), is that it is difficult to adapt to the needs of the multimedia communication network, but it has light and soft, flexural, impact strength, cheap, anti-radiation, easy to process and can be made (1 to 3 mm in diameter, in order to increase the light-angle, expand the scope of) a series of advantages, so favored. In addition, the light passes through the central portion of the plastic optical fiber diameter of about 1 mm, about 100 times larger than the glass fiber, and the connection between the fiber connection and personal computer terminal apparatus is very easy. Plastic optical fiber installation costs low, very simple installation can align the connector plug, this plug can be used existing technology to produce.

The plastic optical fiber as the ideal short-range communication network transmission medium, in the future family of intelligent, office automation, industrial control network. Car airborne communications network, has an important position in military communication network and multimedia equipment in the data transmission.

Using plastic optical fibers, we can realize the smart appliances (home PC, HDTV, phone, digital imaging equipment, home security equipment, air conditioning, refrigerator, sound system, kitchen appliances, etc.) networking, to reach home automation and remote control and management, improve quality of life; through plastic optical fiber, we can achieve office equipment, networking, computer networking can achieve parallel processing computer, high-speed transmission of data between office equipment can greatly improve the work efficiency, remote office?

Low-speed LAN 100Mbps data rate is less than the transmission within 100 meters of with SI index plastic optical fiber to achieve; within 150Mbps50 meters transmission used a small numerical aperture of POF achieve.

POF cable is available a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. Converter, POF connector with RS232, RS422, 100Mbps Ethernet, Token Ring and other standard protocols, resulting in harsh industrial manufacturing environments to provide a stable, reliable communication lines. Capable of high-speed transmission of industrial control signals and instructions, to avoid electromagnetic interference by using a metal cable lines lead to the risk of interruption of communication transmission.

With the development of science and technology, more and more fields of application of plastic optical fiber, the development of the market will be more and more broad. Abroad on the application and development of plastic optical fiber has been achieved greater results, and continue to increase applied research investment, South Korea, China and Taiwan manufacturers have begun to develop production, the industry should be on the plastic optical fiber of research and development to be closely watched.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/