Fluorination effects on attenuation spectra of plastic optical fiber core materials

We investigated how partial fluorination of a phenyl group affects the CH stretching vibrational absorptions of plastic optical fiber (POF) core materials based on poly-(phenyl methacrylate) and poly-styrene. We measured their attenuation spectra and evaluated the effects of fluorination on the CH vibrational potential curve. From the results, we confirmed that in partially fluorinated poly-styrene-based materials, the fluorination can decrease not only the number density of CH bonds but also the amount of CH absorption per bond. This suggests that the absorption reduction efficiency depends on the substituted position in the benzene ring and the chemical structure itself. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America