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. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry