Plastic optical fibers with fluoroalkyl methacrylate copolymer as their core

Abstract

Abstract Novel plastic optical fibers having a core made of a crosslinking copolymer containing mainly fluoroalkyl methacrylate (FMA–POFs) were fabricated and their optical properties were analyzed. In the visible wavelength region, attenuation losses of as‐manufactured FMA–POFs were low and their loss spectra were similar to that of the plastic optical fiber whose core was made of methyl methacrylate copolymer (MMA–POF). But after heating at 160°C in air, increases in attenuation losses of FMA–POFs were about 10 times smaller than that of the MMA–POF. FMA–POFs had an optical window at 780 nm. There was hardly any change in loss at 780 nm compared with the loss increase at 660 nm. This indicated that FMA–POFs would be applicable to optical communications at 780 nm in the near‐IR region.