Mode coupling contribution to radiation losses in curvatures for high and low numerical aperture plastic optical fibers

Author

Losada, M.A. ; Garcés, I. ; Mateo, J. ; Salinas, I. ; Lou, J. ; Zubía, J.

Author_Institution

Departamento de Ingenieria Electronica y Comunicaciones, Zaragoza Univ., Spain

Volume

20

Issue

7

fYear

2002

fDate

7/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1160

Lastpage

1164

Abstract

We have studied the optical power losses due to multiple curvatures in polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) plastic optical fibers (POFs) of different numerical apertures (NAs) and attenuation. The fibers were tested for several configurations in order to assess the influence of different types of curved-to-straight fiber transitions in the amount of power radiation. We found that losses are below the standards for all tested fiber types, and thus, they are a suitable choice for local area network (LAN) applications. In addition, our results revealed the presence of modal interactions as confirmed using an experimental procedure to estimate the mode coupling strength for the same fibers.

Keywords

optical fibre LAN; optical fibre losses; optical fibre testing; optical polymers; PMMA plastic optical fibers; curved-to-straight fiber transitions; fibre LAN; fibre testing; high numerical aperture plastic optical fibers; local area network; low numerical aperture plastic optical fibers; modal interactions; mode coupling contribution; mode coupling strength; multiple curvatures; optical power losses; polymethylmetacrylate plastic optical fibers; power radiation; radiation losses; Apertures; Glass; Optical attenuators; Optical fiber LAN; Optical fiber losses; Optical fiber testing; Optical fibers; Plastics; Power system modeling; Programmable logic arrays;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2002.800377

Filename

1026386