New demultiplexer component for optical polymer fiber communication systems

Data communication over Polymer Optical Fibers (POF) is limited to only one channel for data transmission. Therefore the bandwidth is strongly restricted. By using more than one channel, it is possible to break through the limit. This technique is called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). It uses different wavelengths in the visible spectrum to transmit data parallel over one fiber. Two components are essential for this technology: A multiplexer (MUX) and a demultiplexer (DEMUX). The multiplexer collects the light of the different sources to one fiber and the demultiplexer separates the light at the end of the fiber into the different fiber output ports. To separate the channels at the output ports, one interesting option for high multimode transmission systems is to use an optical grating. Here, the optical grating is placed on an aspheric mirror, which focuses the monochromatic parts of light into the outgoing fibers. In order to keep the advantage of cost-effective POFs it is necessary to mass-produce the MUX and DEMUX component at reasonable prices. For polymers, injection molding is the only technology, which offers high potential to achieves this goal. Before starting the production of the mold insert, a demonstrator of the DEMUX is fabricated by directly machining it in the PMMA material by means of diamond turning technique. Thus, the same diamond-turning technology is used for the manufacture of the mold insert. This step is done due to validate the simulation results with the produced component. Several measurements are required to validate the demonstrator for example to locate the exact position of the focus points of the separated wavelength. The paper discusses the results of the different development steps, the measurements done with the first demonstrator and the challenges related to the injection molding process.