Variation of modal dispersion and bandwidth with temperature in PMMA based step-index polymer optical fibers

The changes in temperature, especially when it arises over a short period of time, can have an effect on the optical transmission of polymer optical fibers. In this paper an analytical function that describes thermal variation of refractive index of commercially available polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) based polymer optical fiber (POF) has been proposed. The mode dispersion have been studied over a wide temperature range, from -100 °C to 100 °C. Results show that the modal dispersion decreases with rising temperature. Particularly extreme conditions in this respect are to be found in automobiles, where for example in an extreme cases the internal temperature may vary between -60 °C and +100 °C.