Thermally stable high-bandwidth graded-index polymer optical fiber

High-bandwidth poly (methyl methacrylate) PMMA base graded-index polymer optical fiber (GI POF) with high thermal stability is proposed. No distortion of bandwidth was observed even after more than 10000 hours aging at 85°C by selecting the large sized aromatic dopant which has a stable secondary interaction with PMMA matrix and maintains the high glass transition temperature (Tg) of the core of GI POF. The relationship between the heat-drawing condition from the GI preform to the fiber and the thermal stability in the attenuation was investigated. It was clarified that the length shrinkage of the fiber during the aging at high temperature caused large attenuation increase. On the other hand, the degree of shrinkage could be tightly controlled by changing the heat-drawing tension. It was confirmed that the GI POF drawn with optimized heat-drawing tension had no shrinkage of the fiber during aging at 70°C and no attenuation increase was observed