Graded index-POF

The picture represents how light propagates through graded index POFs. The incident light draws a sine curve because GI POFs have parabolic refiactive index profiles in the core regions. 

Since all commercially available POF have been of the step-index (SI) type, the modal dispersion limits the possible bit rate of POF links to less than 100 megabit per second (Mb/s). Because of this, it has been thought that POF cannot be utilized for high speed transmission medium. Recently, however, we proposed a large core, low loss, and high bandwidth graded-index polymer optical fiber (GI POF) (7,2) for the first time and we confirmed that 2.5 Gb/s signal transmission for 100 m distance was possible in the GI POF (2,5). 

With the development of the graded-index technology, POFs have become leading candidates for home networking. Since the first Gl POF was reported in 1982, considerable efforts have been made to enhance Gl PDF s performance. For practical applications, many problems have to be overcome. In particular, fiber attenuation and thermal stability have been major issues. 

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