Temperature insensitive low-loss optical connection for automotive gigabit plastic optical fiber communication

Abstract

Step-index plastic optical fibers (SI-POFs) have already been implemented in automotive optical communication because they offer some significant advantages; they are free from electromagnetic noise and are appropriate for reliable data transmission in harsh environment applications. In current systems, an air gap exists between the fiber connections, and the gap size changes because of temperature variations. We propose and demonstrate an approach for the SI-POF in-line connection, which is targeted for automotive gigabit optical communication. We designed and fabricated an up-tapered ferrule and inserted an index matching material into the gap. By using the up-tapered ferrule, we obtained more stable insertion loss, which is proven by the heat cycle tests. By inserting the index matching material, the insertion loss becomes lower. Moreover, an encircled angular flux evaluation also confirmed that our approach does not change the modal power distribution of the fiber.