Abstract
A method for developing polymer optical fiber (POF) directional coupler is introduced where the initial procedure includes using chemical solvent to remove the cladding, and bare out the core in order to align the unclad center of the fiber with other similar fiber to develop a coupler. The process is safe, simple, inexpensive and require low operation skill. The etched fiber offers improvement to the performance of various POF devices, i.e, couplers and sensors. Instead of relying only on silica or glass fiber, POF now can be used as an alternative to improve the network performance in short distance communication system. The measurement parameters laid out offer great outcomes. However, the couplers intended to be developed is yet to be realized, where deeper research and various experiments are needed in order to develop a simple but optimum performance coupler that can be used for various applications.
Highlights
Couplers are common passive optical device that functions to combine two or more wavelengths or signals into one single optical fiber
The research presented explains the initial step in developing directional coupler using etching method
The measured parameters of the tapered polymer optical fiber (POF) offer significant advantages especially for performance of coupler that will be developed in the future
Summary
Couplers are common passive optical device that functions to combine two or more wavelengths or signals into one single optical fiber. The drawback emerges through this method where it is quite impossible to control the spacing of the two cores that held close in proximity and the length of the coupling region accurately [2,3] In this particular study, chemical etching technique is used to fabricate a directional optical coupler. Two D-shape fibers are joint longitudinally along the flat areas using index-matching epoxy-resin This technique shows better precision in terms of spacing between the two fibers and the coupling length than fused-taper method [5]. A technique of removing the cladding of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) polymer optical fiber using chemical solvent is used to create etched tapers at certain length in the middle part of the fiber.
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