Abstract
The polymer based photonic or microstructured optical fibers with low-cost manufacturability, and the mechanical and chemical flexibility offer key advantages over conventional silica based photonic crystal fibers. The polymer photonic crystal fiber is fabricated by careful stacking an array of PMMA capillaries to form a preform, and followed by fusing and drawing into fiber on a fiber-drawing tower. The polymer photonic crystal fiber with 2μm ∿ 12μm periodical air holes was successfully fabricated The light (λ=1280nm and 632nm) coupled into this core does indeed travel along long lengths of fiber and remain a single guided mode. The effects of drawing parameters including the temperature and time duration of sintering as well as the drawing temperature and speed on the microstructure of polymer fiber are discussed. The optimum conditions for the fabrication of high quality polymer photonic crystal fibers are also investigated. Keywords : Fabrication, polymer photonic crystal fiber, PMMA, preform
