Low loss poly(methyl methacrylate) useful in polymer optical fibres technology

Abstract

-The paper presents comparison of thermal and optical properties of the typical commercial available and manufactured in our laboratory poly(methyl metacrylate) polymer useful in polymer optical fibers technology. The thermal studies were made by thermogravimeter connected on-line with FT-IR and QMS spectrometer, the optical properties were characterized by spectral attenuation measurements. It was found that polymer obtained in our laboratory is characterized by higher temperature (about 100 0 C) of beginning mass loss occurred and lower attenuation then commercial available polymer.Microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) provide extra degrees of freedom in manipulating the optical properties of light, such as dispersion, nonlinearity, and birefringence [1][2][3][4][5]. Therefore they have attracted increased interest over the last two decades. Due to specific material properties, the technology of microstructured polymer optical fibers (mPOF) has been intensively developed in recent years. Polymer fibers may show better parameters than fibers made of silica glass in a variety of applications. One of the advantages is biological compatibility, which opens the possibility for medical applications. Moreover polymers have higher flexibility than silica glass, therefore can withstand much higher strains, which enables applications of polymer fibers as elongation sensors in a strain range unattainable for silica fibers [6]. In order to obtain a polymer optical fiber with the proper optical characteristics, it is necessary to prepare specific preform from which optical fibers are drawn or extruded. Now polymer optical fibers are mainly manufactured from poly(methyl methacrylate) PMMA (linear polymer), produced by the polymerization of methyl methacrylate. Unfortunately the main disadvantage of "PMMA optical fibers" is their very high losses, in comparison with "silica fibers", mainly caused by C-H bonds and impurities. In this letter we present the low loss poly(methyl metacrylate) polymer manufactured in our Laboratory. The manufactured from our polymer mPOF was characterized by significant decrease of the losses.* E-mail: pawel.mergo@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl A sample of "our PMMA" was prepared from methyl methacrylate (ALDRICH). In polymer technology two methods of polymerization are used -thermal and photopolimerization. The chemical reaction, essentially, takes place in the same way, except the source of initiation. Due to the crosslinking of the polymer during photopolymerization, this technique is not used in the polymer optical fibers technology. A very important issue in the production of materials for optical applications is their purity. Even a small amount of impurities can significantly decrease the transmission properties of the final product such as an optical fiber. Therefore, MMA was purified before starting the process of polymerization. The purification is performed by distillation process in under pressure conditions getting rid of impurities as well as undesirable inhibitor, which is added to ...

Spectral characteristics of PMMA doped with dimethacrylate derivative of naphthalene-2,7-diol use full in UV sensors

“…After excitation by UV radiation, the sample emits yellow-green light, which coincides with the range of a wavelength for the green light (500-542nm) and for the yellow one (542-578nm). On the basis of our previous works [16] the doped PMMA was fabricated by thermal polymerization of the mixture: methylmetacrytate (MMA) as a basic monomer, dimethacrylate derivative of naphthalate-2,7-diol as a dopant (5% w/w), benzoyl peroxide as an initiator (0.4% w/w) and thioglycolic acid as a chain transfer agent (0.8% w/w).…”

Synthesis of photoluminescent-doped poly(methyl methacrylate)

“…In the case of the highest quality optical fibers, always the mass loss is the most crucial value, because drawing a good optical fibers becomes problematic. It was investigated that the value is about 5 mass% of mass loss, enable for successive drawing process [13]. Nowadays, poly(methyl methacrylate) (poly(MMA)) is often used as polymeric material in optical fiber technology.…”

Determination of the optimal extrusion temperature of the PMMA optical fibers

“…In our studies we have chosen poly(methyl methacrylate) as a preliminary material. The main reason was its price and common use [5].…”