Recent developments in the short distance communication have made polymer optical fibers (POF) an attractive product in the high speed data communication market. The requirement of a large bandwidth, low cost, light weight and flexibility in installation have placed them over the copper cables especially in applications like home networking and automotives. Since POFs are large core multimoded fibers, their band width is limited by intermodal dispersion. This confines POFs application to low data rate short distance communications. Restrictive mode launchers (RML) and higher order mode strippers placed in the data link helps to reduce the intermodal dispersion. The techniques used to implement these signal conditioners should be simple and cost effective to keep POFs attractive in the short distance communication. In this paper we explore the possibility of integrating the RML and mode stripping elements in the transmitter and receiver package itself. The pre-designed optical signal conditioning elements are projected to get molded in the plastic packages and are fiber plug in modules. This connector less package design, universal to any light source proposes to enhance the data rate and is widely manufacturable at an ease of installation and low cost.

Date Published: 7 March 2008
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 6896, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XII, 68960U (7 March 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.764338

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6896:
Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XII
Christoph M. Greiner; Christoph A. Waechter, Editor(s)