An overview on fabrication methods for polymer optical fibers

An overview of the most important materials and fabrication methods for polymer optical fibers is given. In addition to conventional fabrication methods a newly developed continuous melt spinning process for graded-index fibers is presented that uses rapid cooling in a water quench for the profile formation. The approaches presented are divided into continuous and discontinuous processes for step- and graded-index profile fibers as well as microstructured polymer optical fibers. The methods are described in detail and discussed concerning their efficiency, quality of produced fibers and scalability. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry