Termination of small diameter (125 /spl mu/m) plastic optical fiber for 1/spl times/12 datacommunication

It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the potential of 125 /spl mu/m plastic optical fibre (POF) in coupling applications and in short distance parallel datacom applications. To this end, the termination of small diameter (125 /spl mu/m) POF in a 1/spl times/12 array has been investigated. To align and fix the fibres on a 250 /spl mu/m pitch, we used a standard MT/sup TM/ ferrule. Three termination techniques were investigated: hot knife cutting, polishing and hot plate flattening. Transmission measurements were performed at a wavelength of 633 nm on a number of small diameter POF arrays. MT/sup TM/ terminated POF ribbons were coupled to each other. With the three termination techniques, mentioned before, coupling losses of 0.9, 0.7 and 0.4 dB have been obtained. In addition, measurements on lateral misalignment tolerances were carried out.