Graded-index polymer optical fiber for high-speed data communication

We successfully obtained a high-bandwidth (1 GHz km) and low-loss (90 dB/km at 0.572 µm of wavelength) graded-index polymer optical fiber by using the interfacial-gel polymerization technique, in which we used an unreactive component to obtain the quadratic refractive-index distribution. This high-bandwidth graded-index polymer optical fiber makes it possible to transmit a high-speed optical signal in a short-range network, which is not possible when we use the step-index type of polymer optical fiber commercially available.