Mode Coupling in Plastic Optical Fiber Enables 40-Gb/s Performance

We report 40-Gb/s capability of 50-mum core plastic optical fiber using differential modal delay measurements and power penalty due to intersymbol interference computations. The results are explained via a comprehensive multimode fiber model that includes mode coupling (MC) and differential modal attenuation (DMA). We show that strong MC can enable 40-Gb/s transmission for reach in excess of 100 m even in the presence of irregularities in the refractive index profile that prevent 10-Gb/s performance without MC. Furthermore, we show that DMA effects are negligible and that the mode power distributions are not a good indicator of bandwidth.