The Predecessor Of Plastic Optical Fiber

Plastic optical fiber was formerly known as glass optical fiber. Glass optical fiber is a fibrous material used for transmitting optical signals and is made of high-purity glass. Its working principle is to transmit optical signals by total reflection of light, which is continuously reflected inside the fiber. Glass optical fibers have lower signal loss and higher bandwidth and are therefore widely used in communication, medical devices, sensors and other fields.

However, glass optical fibers are not suitable for some specific application scenarios due to complex material preparation and processing, high cost and relative fragility. In order to reduce cost, increase flexibility and meet specific needs, plastic optical fibers have been developed. Plastic optical fiber uses a similar transmission principle as glass devices, but the material is made of high hardness plastic, which is relatively more flexible and easy to process.

Plastic optical fiber has some advantages in some short-distance communication, lighting, sensors and industrial applications, but due to its relatively poor signal transmission performance, it usually can not replace the glass fiber in the field of long-distance and high-bandwidth communication applications. There are advantages and disadvantages in different application scenarios, so the appropriate device type will be selected according to the needs in the actual application.