What Is Plastic Optical Fiber? What Scenarios Can Communication Plastic Optical Fiber Be Used for？

1 Introduction

Communication plastic optical fiber (hereinafter referred to as plastic optical fiber) development of the beginning of almost the same as the glass optical fiber, both from the 1960s. But from the 197x era, the development of glass optical fiber is like hanging, while the plastic optical fiber has been even the attenuation of the problem are difficult to solve, so in the communication of plastic optical fiber is difficult to find the trace.

2 plastic optical fiber manufacturing

There are two main manufacturing methods of plastic optical fiber, extrusion and drawing method, SI plastic optical fiber is usually produced by extrusion method, GI plastic optical fiber is mainly produced by drawing method.SI plastic optical fiber extrusion production line usually consists of granule drums, conveyor pumps, core extruder, cladding extruder, and take-up tray and so on. The production process is, as the core of the pellets into the pellet barrel, and then use the conveyor pump will be injected into the core extruder extrusion core, and then use the cladding extruder in the core has been formed on the outside of a cladding extruder, after rapid cooling, and finally made of SI plastic optical fiber.

At present, the domestic plastic fiber manufacturers only have the production capacity of SI plastic optical fiber, are produced using the extrusion method.

Drawing method needs to use chemical methods to create the designed refractive index distribution of large diameter prefabricated rods, and then the prefabricated rods are placed in a high-temperature furnace, heated to make it soften and pull into a fine optical fiber in line with the diameter requirements. The drawing process is just a densification process from thick rods to fine fibers, and the transmission properties of the fiber need to be obtained through the rod-making process. Therefore, the manufacturing difficulty of GI plastic optical fiber is to produce a core refractive index distribution in line with the standard prefabricated rods.

In some university laboratories, plastic optical fibers for testing are manufactured by the drawing method.

3 Application scenarios of plastic optical fiber

The advantages of plastic optical fiber are good flexibility and strong bending resistance, so the core diameter of the plastic optical fiber can be manufactured larger, so that the coupling of the optical fiber to the light source will be easier.

At the same time, plastic optical fiber is relatively soft, optical fiber with simple tools can be cut off, optical fiber into the end of the manual can be completed.

On the other hand, glass fiber termination is much more troublesome. For example, in the FTTR scenario, the fiber core diameter of the fiber in the indoor cable is only about 10μm, the cutting and termination of the indoor cable needs to be arranged by the operator with special technicians, equipped with fiber optic fusion splicing machine can be completed. If the use of GI plastic fiber, the user's home fiber optic wiring, cutting, termination and other work can be completed by the user.

Plastic optical fiber attenuation, low bandwidth, suitable for transmission distance of not more than 100 meters, the transmission rate of not more than 100Mbps short-distance communication system.GI plastic optical fiber attenuation is smaller, bandwidth. The mode bandwidth of some models of GI plastic optical fiber is as high as 10Gbps-100m, which can support 10 Gigabit transmission within 100m, and can work at 850nm and 1300nm wavelengths, which can be used in most scenarios as an alternative to the OM1, OM2 and OM3 multimode optical fibers.

4 Write in the end

Plastic optical fiber attenuation, low bandwidth, easy to become the end of the characteristics of the plastic optical fiber is suitable for short distances, transmission rate requirements are not high scenes. Domestic production capacity of only SI plastic optical fiber, plastic optical fiber is only used in industrial control, automotive multimedia and other low-speed systems. In FTTR, wiring in the building and other scenes that require high transmission rate, glass fiber or twisted cable is still used as the transmission medium. These scenes if the GI plastic fiber, perhaps more conducive to user operation and maintenance, the cost is also lower. But unfortunately, there is no domestic production of GI plastic optical fiber, the international GI plastic fiber industry is not perfect, plastic optical fiber in the scale of communication applications have become distant.