Light Amplification in Polymer Optical Fibers

Abstract

Polymer optical fibers (POF) have attracted increasing attention because of their clear technical advantages over glass fibers, such as flexibility and a large core diameter, which enable efficient coupling and connection. Recently, we developed low-loss (100 dB/km) high-bandwidth (5.12 GHz for 100-m transmisson) graded index POF1. Polymer optical fibers that regenerate signal light in the visible and infrared are potentially important because of their adaptability for POF-based short span optical local distribution networks such as premise wiring and LAN.