Low-cost cascaded 1×4 Polymer Optical Fiber coupler for multiplexing wavelengths

Abstract

The Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology considered as the only solution for increasing demand for higher bandwidth in optical communication, whereby several different wavelengths can carry variety information over one Polymer Optical Fiber (POF). Wavelength Division Multiplexer is an essential component to combine several different wavelengths before all wavelengths are carried together over single POF. In most instances, the conventional multiplexers are afflicted with certain disadvantages and one major disadvantage is that they are costly for most of the POF applications. Thus, the goal of this study is to develop self-fabricated POF coupler as an economical optical multiplexer for WDM transmission over POF. The POF coupler has been fabricated by homemade fusion technique. Red LED with a 650 nm wavelength has been injected into the coupler for the purpose of characterization testing to analyze the level of power efficiency of the coupler. The characterization of POF coupler reveals that the maximum power efficiency could be reached up to 70%. The result exhibits that self-fabricated 1×4 POF coupler has great potential to be applied as optical multiplexer for WDM fiber technology due to the character of high-efficiency and low-cost.