The rate of data transmission over plastic optical fibers can be increased by controlling modal dispersion
Friday, October 28, 2011 - 09:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Plastic optical fibers offer a more efficient method of data transmission in telecommunications. While glass optical fibers allow very high data rates to be transmitted, they are expensive and difficult to work with. Twisted pair copper cabling, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to work with, but slow. Plastic optical fibers represent an intermediate solution, providing reasonable data rates at a low cost. To promote their wider usage, however, the data rates must first be improved. Pinjala Damaruganath and co-workers at the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and the Nanyang Technological University have now discovered a way to increase the data rates of plastic optical fibers.
