PRESENT PROSPECT OF GRADED-INDEX PLASTIC OPTICAL-FIBER IN TELECOMMUNICATION

The status of the plastic optical fiber (POF) for high-speed data comm unication is described. Very recently, the low-loss and high-bandwidth perfluorinated GI POF which has no serious absorption loss from visib le to 1.3-mu m wavelength was successfully prepared at Keio University . Since the core diameter (300-1000 mu m) of the GI POF is much larger than that of the multimode silica fiber (62.5 mu m), the serious moda l noise in the conventional multimode silica fiber was virtually elimi nated, resulting in stable giga bit order data transmission with inexp ensive couplers and connectors.