Advantages of Plastic Optical Fibers

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 currently.

Fiber technology is constantly 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.

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 100dB/km. This high attenuation significantly limits POF’s applications in data communication applying a lot more than 100m.

Outdoor GYTA Optical Cable

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 10dB/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. Sopto can supply both simplex and duplex plastic optical fibers. Our standard color is black. Other colors are available upon request.

For purchasing high quality fiber optics with low cost or for more products’ information, please contact a Sopto representative by calling 86-755-36946668, or by sending an email to info@sopto.com.