Experimental Assessment of the Transmission Performance of Step Index Polymer Optical Fibers Using a Green Laser Diode

Large-core polymer optical fiber (POF) links have limitations in capacity and reach due to the fibers’ high modal dispersion and attenuation. Most of these links use red laser diodes, even though the attenuation spectrum of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), the basic polymer used to manufacture these fibers, has a lower minimum in the green region. Therefore, we set out to explore the potential use of green light in transmission systems, comparing the performances of three step-index polymer optical fibers (SI-POFs) with different numerical apertures. We obtained measurements of intensity distribution, frequency response and bit error rate (BER), as functions of fiber length. We have also compared the fibers’ frequency responses with red and green light for a few selected lengths. Our results confirm that SI-POFs attenuate less in response to green light, which can increase their length. This advantage is partially counterbalanced by a slightly higher dispersion that limits the capacity of the high-aperture fibers, particularly at relatively short lengths. Our conclusions are critical to understanding SI-POF behavior and to designing thorough SI-POF models that can aid the design of POF-based links for different scenarios.