Fabrication of segmented cladding fiber by bicomponent spinning

Abstract

AbstractFabrication of segmented cladding fiber (SCF) by bicomponent spinning was proposed in this article. In the new designed spin pack, we considered the high refractive component of cladding and core as a whole to control the cross section of the fiber. Quenching system in current bicomponent melting spinning system was modified according to the requirement of quenching fiber with a large size. The polymer SCF with required cross section was successfully fabricated using polycarbonate and polymethyl methacrylate. The transmission loss in the wavelength of 500–1000 nm was tested by the cut‐back method. The result showed that the transmission loss of the obtained fiber was comparatively high, being up to 30 dB/m. The output light pattern of the obtained fiber of 60 cm was collected by using a charge‐coupled device camera with laser light of 532 nm as the input. The output light pattern for the far field was a uniform circle and that for the near field was similar to the cross‐section designed. The results showed that the obtained fiber was still a multimode optical fiber because of the comparatively large refractive index difference between the two materials used. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers