Abstract

Polymer optical fibers (POF's) have recently drawn increasing attention in optical data communication community. The use of POF's allows low cost large bandwidth optical communications for distances shorter than 100 meters. A simple reason behind the low cost is that a large fiber diameter (0.75-1.0 mm) permits the use of plastic injection-molded connectors which are much cheaper than conventional multi-element metal connectors for glass optical fibers (GOF's). In this paper, we further explore the applications of POF's to short distance optical interconnections. The focus here is on how to provide inexpensive couplings for POF interconnected data links.

© 1997 Optical Society of America