Lucent Technologies announced that it is developing a new plastic optical fibre.
Lucent will use CYTOP material made by Asahi Glass Company of Japan to develop a new line of graded index plastic opti…
Lucent Technologies announced that it is developing a new plastic optical fibre. Lucent will use CYTOP material made by Asahi Glass Company of Japan to develop a new line of graded index plastic optical fibre (GI-POF) products. Lucent said the new plastic optical fibre will enhance the capabilities of its specialty fibre business. The company said it will sell the new fibre for short-distance specialty fiber applications requiring fiber links shorter than 100 meters. “We have broken the speed and distance barriers that have limited the use of conventional plastic optical fibre in some specialty applications, while preserving the easy connector mounting possible with other types of plastic fibre, ” said Xina Quan, director of Photonics Packaging Research at Bell Labs. “The emergence of high-speed interfaces will assist in completing the specialty product portfolio offered to customers requiring higher data rates. ” said Derek Perez, marketing manager in Lucent“s Specialty Fiber Technologies unit. “The 120 micron plastic core eases connector alignment and facilitates low cost transmitters.” Lucent said the graded index plastic optical fibre will support higher transmission speeds and longer link lengths than conventional plastic fibre, although the maximum link lengths are considerably shorter than those supported by glass multimode fibres such as Lucent“s OptiSPEED fibre. In addition, Lucent“s graded index plastic optical fibre will support transmitters using wavelengths from 850 nm to 1300 nm.