Abstract
With a view to fabricating high glass transition temperature T<sub><i>g</i></sub>
graded-index plastic optical fiber (GI POF) by the coextrusion process, core material
consisting of copolymer of 2,2,2-trichloroethyl methacrylate (TCEMA) and N-cyclohexyl
maleimide (cHMI) (P(TCEMA-co-cHMI)), and diphenyl sulfide (DPS) as dopant was newly
developed. Although homo polymer of TCEMA (PTCEMA) possesses high T<sub><i>g</i></sub> and high
transparency, it was found that PTCEMA began depolymerization at ca. 200°C,
which means that PTCEMA-based GI POF fabricated by the coextrusion process has low
T<sub><i>g</i></sub> due to depolymerized monomer. By copolymerizing TCEMA with cHMI (5 mol%), the
rate of weight loss at constant temperature T = 230°C was drastically decreased
(15 wt%/hr). Moreover, the T<sub><i>g</i></sub> linearly increased from 130°C to
197°C with increasing cHMI composition ratio from 0 to 62 wt%, respectively.
Scattering loss of the copolymer was increased with the increase of cHMI composition
ratio due to the refractive index difference between PTCEMA and PcHMI. It was found that
the increment of the scattering loss was suppressed significantly when the copolymer
includes DPS (120 dB/km decrease by adding 4 wt% DPS for the copolymer including 5 mol%
cHMI). From these results, P(TCEMA-co-cHMI)-based core material was thought to be a
promising candidate for high T<sub><i>g</i></sub> GI POF.
© 2012 IEEE
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