Nondestructive scheme for measuring the attenuation coefficient of polymer optical fiber

Based on the fiber macrobending and the refractive index matching technologies, a measurement scheme is proposed to gauge the attenuation coefficient of polymer optical fibers in this Letter. It is noteworthy that, by realizing both the light injecting into and the light extracting out the fiber core via the fiber cladding, this scheme will not induce any destruction during the whole measurement. Some related experiments and the theoretical verifications are given together with the nondestructive measurement principle. The comparison between the experimental results of this scheme and that of the cut-back scheme indicates a good feasibility of our scheme. As a result, it is promised to have a potential application for achieving the on-line attenuation monitoring that has never been introduced.