OPTICAL FIBERS

31/10/2017
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University
Definition
Optical fibers are long and flexible kinds of optical waveguides. They are
essentially always based either on some glass or on polymers (plastic
optical fibers).

Among the glasses, fused silica (amorphous silicon dioxide, SiO2) is the
strongly dominating material in fiber optics (particularly for optical fiber
communications).
The way optical fibres work
The light in a fibre-optic cable travels through the core by constantly
bouncing from the cladding (mirror-lined walls), a principle called total
internal reflection.

However, some of the light signal degrades within the fibre, mostly due to
impurities in the glass. The extent that the signal degrades depends on the
purity of the glass and the wavelength of the transmitted light..
Uses
Communication - Telephone transmission method uses fibre-optic
cables. Optical fibres transmit energy in the form of light pulses.

Medical uses - Optical fibres are well suited for medical use. They can
be made in extremely thin, flexible strands for insertion into the blood
vessels, lungs, and other hollow parts of the body. Optical fibres are
used in a number of instruments that enable doctors to view internal
body parts without having to perform surgery.

Simple uses - The simplest application of optical fibres is the

transmission of light to locations otherwise hard to reach. Also,
bundles of several thousand very thin fibres assembled precisely side
by side and optically polished at their ends, can be used to transmit
images.
Polymer fibres for optical fibres

Polymers have been investigated as a platform for the fabrication of

microstructured optical fibres (MOFs) since 2001 in the context of the
photonic crystal fibre (PCF).

The original work on PCF was based on silica fibres and the key innovation
of using holes running the length of an optical fibre to control light in
unprecedented ways

The interest in using polymers arose from the difference in material

properties between polymers and silica and the possibilities this entailed.

Conventional (step-index or graded-index) plastic optical fibres

(POFs) are based on polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA).
The use of cyclic transparent optical polymer (CYTOP) was demonstrated
in an optical fibre context and also at terahertz frequencies in a photonic
crystal planar waveguide.

CYTOP is a perfluorinated polymer, meaning all the hydrogen in the

polymer is replaced by fluorine. The heavier fluorine atoms reduce the
frequency of molecular vibrations and shift the associated absorption
lines to longer wavelengths, increasing the transparency in the visible and
near infrared.
Fabrication methods

The common element of the work under review here is the fabrication of
microstructured polymer fibres by fibre drawing methods.

Fibre drawing entails at least two stages of fabrication, beginning with the
construction of a preform which is a scaled-up (larger in diameter, shorter
in length) version of the fibre that contains its essential features such as
the necessary structure and material.

The second stage is drawing this preform to fibre using a draw tower. The
basic draw process involves heating the preform to a temperature
sufficiently larger than to reduce its viscosity such that it can be drawn to
fibre (e.g., at around 200°C for PMMA).

The process may also involve intermediate stages, such as drawing the
initial preform to an intermediate size called “cane,” sleeving to increase
diameter, or combining several canes to form a new preform.
Aging tests

It is used to help determine the long-term effects of expected

levels of stress within a shorter time, usually in a laboratory by
controlled standard test methods.

It is used to estimate the useful lifespan of a product or its

shelf life when actual lifespan data is unavailable.