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High-Bandwidth Graded-Index Plastic Optical Fiber With Low-Attenuation, High-Bending Ability, and High-Thermal Stability for Home-Networks
Makoto Asai, Yukari Inuzuka, Kotaro Koike, Satoshi Takahashi, and Yasuhiro Koike
AbstractThe graded-index plastic optical ber (GI-POF) is expected to be a communication medium for the next-generation optical home network because of its simple-to-use connection, installation, and high bandwidth. In spite of the expectation, we had a problem that a typical GI-POF using poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) had high transmission loss in the expected communication wavelength band (VCSEL: 670680 nm) for home networks; the required values of being below 200 dB/km could not be achieved. We, therefore, propose poly (2, 2, 2-trichloroethyl methacrylate) (PTCEMA) as a base material for the GI-POF. A PTCEMA-based GI-POF was fabricated, and its characteristics were evaluated. The PTCEMA is a prominent material in terms of its transparency and heat-resistant property. Our results demonstrated that the fabricated ber surpassed the desired characteristics for the home network pertaining to attenuation and heat resistance. Specically, the attenuation in the wavelength band (670680 nm) was 104136 dB/km, and the glass transition temperature was 102 C in the core center where the was at its lowest. Moreover, we conrmed that our PTCEMA-based GI-POF had sufcient mechanical strength and low bending loss. These results indicate that our novel GI-POF can be a candidate for home networks. Index TermsGraded index plastic optical ber, high bending ability, high thermal stability, home-networks.

I. INTRODUCTION ODAY, a number of services, which include large information contents like high-denition movies, is rapidly growing. Single-mode glass optical ber (SMF) has been utilized in trunk lines, becoming the indispensable information transmission medium in the form of large information pipelines connecting large cities and nations. However, the core diameter
Manuscript received January 26, 2011; revised March 15, 2011; accepted March 22, 2011. Date of publication April 05, 2011; date of current version May 18, 2011. This work was supported in part by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through the Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST Program). M. Asai is with the Institute for Solid State Physic, University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8581, Japan (e-mail: m.asai@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp). Y. Inuzuka is with the School of Integrated Design Engineering, Graduate School of Keio University, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan. Y. Inuzuka, S. Takahashi, and Y. Kaike are with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology and Solution Oriented Research for Science and Technology (ERATO-SORST); Kawasaki, Kanagawa 212-0032, Japan. K. Koike and Y. Koike are with the Keio Photonics Research Institute, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 2120032, Japan. K. Koike is with the Polymer Research Institute, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, New York, NY 11201 USA. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/JLT.2011.2134834

of the SMF is very small (10 m), and an extremely precise technique is required for connecting the bers to signal-receiving devices. For this reason, it would be difcult to install the SMF for optical home networks. In order to overcome the problem, the graded-index plastic optical ber (GI-POF) has been proposed as a solution [1], [2]. The GI-POF is sufciently exible [3] and large in core diameter (generally, over 500 m), which allows an easy connection with other devices via inexpensive connectors . Therefore, it can be installed at a low cost. Moreover, the bandwidth of the GI-POF can be enhanced by controlling its radial refractive index proles. So far, peruorinated (PF) polymer-based GI-POF has been used in ofces or schools as high-speed data transmission medium in Japan [3]. On the other hand, many studies have been conducted on Gigabit Ethernet over SI POF, mainly in Europe. Although the transmission rate of SI POF is theoretically limited to several hundred megahertz over 100 m, transmission rates exceeding 1.0 Gbps have been achieved by adopting discrete multitone (DMT) modulation in networks using SI POF [4][7]. In home networks, it is supposed that the vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is used as the light source. Therefore, it is required that attenuation for the GI-POF be below 200 dB/km at a wavelength range of 670680 nm, and the bandwidth be over 1.0 GHz for the 50-m-long ber and be thermally stable at maximum temperature of 60 C.1 Conventionally, poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) has been suggested as a material for the GI-POF [8]; it was, however, not suitable for optical home networks because the attenuation was greater than 200 dB/km at 670680 nm (see Fig. 7). The attenuation at the communication wavelengths was mainly caused by higher harmonics due to carbon-hydrogen (C-H) vibrational absorption [9]. In order to solve the problem, in the previous study, partially uorinated acrylic polymer, poly (PTFEMA)-based GI-POF was suggested [10]. Because the C-H bonds per unit volume occupy 64% of the entire space in poly (2, 2, 2-triuoroethyl methacrylate) (PTFEMA) compared to that of the PMMA, the attenuation efciently decreases. However, the PTFEMA was found unsuitable because of its low thermal stability. Moreover, we have reported the feasibility of GI-POF using copolymer of 2, 2, 2-trichloroethyl methacrylate (TCEMA) and methyl -chloro acrylate (MCA) [11]. Although this copolymer based GI-POF
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has highly thermal stability, it has big disadvantage that it is very difcult to be fabricated. In this paper, poly-TCEMA (PTCEMA) was proposed as a core material for the GI-POF. We have conrmed that the of PTCEMA was 130 C, which was higher by 15 C than that of PMMA. This is because PTCEMA has higher molecular weight than that of PMMA. Moreover, the C-H bonds per unit volume of the PTCEMA occupy 57% of the PMMA, and attenuation is expected to be less than the required level for home-networks. As an index for thermal stability of the GI-POF, in order for the base material of the GI-POF to be used in the home networks, the is calculated by adding 20 C to the maximum required temperature 60 C. Consequently, the required can be estimated as 80 C. The PTCEMA based GI-POF was expected to have high heat resistance due to its high (higher than 130 C). In Section 2, we introduce the theory to evaluate the theoretical dB bandwidth of GI-POF and claried quantities to be measured. Next, in Section 3, we describe our experiments for investigation of plasticization of Diphenyle sulde (DPS) to PTCEMA, fabrication of the PTCEMA based GI-POF and optical characterization and mechanical test of the GI-POF. In Sections 4 and 5, we discuss our results and gave conclusions. II. THEORY A. Theoretical dB Bandwidth

by the Olshansky and Keck approximation based on the WKB method [14] where the modal dispersion , material dispersion , and total dispersion are given by

(3)

(4)

(5) Here, is the spectral width of an input optical pulse; is the group refractive index; is the light speed; is the wavelength of light; and is the transmission distance. The relationship between and the theoretical dB bandwidth is given by dB where the output pulse is approximated by Gaussian. III. EXPERIMENTAL (2) A. Fabrication of Bulk Samples for Measurements of Optical and Thermal Properties First, an appropriate condition of polymerization of the PTCEMA was investigated. In an ideal condition of polymerization, the amount of remaining monomer should be zero and of the bulk sample be as the same as that of puried polymer. However, in radical polymerization, it is generally difcult for the conversion of polymerization to reach 100%. Therefore, we needed to decide the appropriate condition of polymerization, in which of the bulk sample should be the nearest to that of puried polymer. Therefore, the TCEMA was polymerized in a bulk at 85 C140 C for 24 hours using di-tert-butyl peroxide and laurylmercaptan as a free radical initiator and a chain transfer agent, respectively. The temperature of 10 hours half-life of di-tert-butyl peroxide was 120 C. (6)

Radial refractive index proles of a GI ber are generally approximated by the power law as shown in

(1) is the refractive index of the core center; is the Here, refractive index of the cladding, is the distance from ber axis; is the core radius; and is a refractive index exponent. is the relative index difference dened as

The bandwidth properties of the GI-POF with refractive index proles expressed as (1) have ever been analyzed [12], [13]. In general, the bandwidth of optical ber that excites many modes is dominantly affected by modal dispersion. However, once the modal dispersion is decreased, as in the example of GI-POF, the effects on the bandwidth caused by material dispersion cannot be ignored. Material dispersion given by the quantity

where is the refractive index, is the wavelength of light source, and is the light velocity, is a dispersion induced by the dependence of refractive index on wavelength of the light. Relationship between and the dispersions can be calculated

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B. Measurements of Bulk Samples 1) Remaining Monomer: Each sample was puried by a reprecipitation technique using dichloromethane as a solvent and methanol as a poor solvent. The amounts of remaining monomers of all samples were measured using gas chromatography analysis (GC 2010 Shimadzu Co., Ltd.). 2) Glass Transition Temperature: The s of all bulk polymer samples and puried polymer samples were measured using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC, Shimadzu Co., Ltd.) The heating rate of the DSC measurement was 10 C/min. Samples for the measurement were chipped off from bulk samples. 3) Wavelength Dependence of Refractive Index: The refractive indexes of fabricated sample polymers were measured by the prism coupling refractive index measurement system (Metricon Co., Ltd.). The wavelengths of light source were 409, 633, 837, and 1564 nm. The wavelength dependence of the refractive index of a polymer was tted by a three-term Sellmeier dispersion relation of the form (7) where is the refractive index; is the oscillator strength; is the oscillator wavelength; and is the wavelength. By substituting (7) with the determined parameters and into (4), we calculated the material dispersion. We obtained the Sellmeier coefcients as . The dimension for and is dimensionless and nm, respectively. C. Fabrication of GI-POF The PTCEMA-based GI-POF was prepared by the rod-intube technique [15]. In this method, a polymer tube for a ber cladding and a polymer rod for a ber core were fabricated separately and then fused together by heating. The polymer rod was doped with high-refractive-index dopant. During the fusion process, GI prole was formed in the rod by the thermal diffusion of the dopant. The polymer rod was prepared by polymerizing TCEMA monomer dissolved with a 4.0 wt.% of di-phenyl Sulde (DPS) at 120 C for 48 hours. The resultant weight-average molecular weight was . The refractive indexes of the PMMA and the DPS were 1.516 and 1.630, respectively. The polymer tube was fabricated by polymerizing MMA in a glass tube, rotated axially at high speed, at 70 C for 24 hours, followed by a subsequent heat-treatment at 90 C for 24 hours under atmospheric pressure. The resultant was . The outside diameter of the core rod and the inside diameter of the cladding tube were preliminarily designed so that the core rod could be easily inserted within the polymer tube. In the fusion process, the polymer tube with the core rod set inside was sandwiched between two Teon rods within a heat-shrinkable tube and heated at 160 C for 2 hours. Finally, GI-POF whose diameter was 600 m was obtained by the heat drawing at 240 C. Additionally, we fabricated PMMA-based GI POF by the interfacial gel polymerization technique [2], which was used for

comparison in the bending loss experiments described blow. The details of fabrication process are described in [2]. The ber diameter, core diameter and N.A. were set to be 1000 m, 735 m and 0.21, respectively. D. Measurements of PTCEMA-Based GI POF 1) Radial Refractive Index Prole: The refractive index prole was analyzed with the near-eld technique. The near-eld technique was described in detail [16], [17]. The 40-m-long PTCEMA-based GI-POF was launched with an over-lled mode launch (OML), and the intensity prole of the launch power at the end of the ber was measured. 2) Attenuation Spectrum: The attenuation spectra measurement of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF was carried out using the cut-back method.2 As a light source, a tungsten lamp was used and a transmitted light power was measured by the optical spectrum analyzer (Ando Electronic Co., Ltd.) and compared with an input power. 3) Bandwidth: The bandwidth of the 40-m-long PTCEMAbased GI-POF was evaluated by the time domain measurement method in which the bandwidth was estimated by measuring the output pulse waveform. As a light source, an InGaAsP pulsed laser diode emitting at 655 nm wavelength was adopted. Restricted mode launch condition (RML) was used for a light coupling to a ber.3 The optical signal from the LD was injected through an objective lens (N.A. of 0.3) into the PMMA based SI-POF,4 whose core diameter was 500 m. The SI-POF was connected with the GI-glass optical ber (GI-GOF), whose core diameter was 50 m. The optical signal from the GI-GOF was used as the input pulse to the sample bers. The typical input pulse width measured at the end of the GI-GOF was 150 psec. The output pulse from the bers was measured by a sampling optical oscilloscope (Hamamatsu Photonics Co. C8188-03). 4) Bending Loss: The bending loss of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF was investigated with the following conditions: The bending angle was 90 ; the number of times bent was 10; the bending radius was varied from 5 to 25 mm.5 The launching condition was the RML. The bending loss was determined by the difference of the output power before and after bending. The output power was measured by an optical power meter (Ando Electronic Co., Ltd. AQ2140). The schematic diagram of bending loss measurement system is shown in Fig. 1. For comparison, the bending ability of CYTOP-based GI-POF,6 PMMA-based GI-POF and PMMA-based-SI POF [18] were also investigated. 5) Mechanical Strength: The mechanical strength of the GI-POF was evaluated by drawing stress-strain curves, as described in [18]. A stress-strain curve was obtained by measuring the developed force as the sample ber was elongated at a constant rate of extension. In the stress-strain curves, the
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have suggested this launch condition as the method of the bandwidth measurement of GI-POF (not published).
4PMMA based SI-POF ESKA, manufactured by Mitsubishi Rayon Company, Ltd. 5IEC

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Fig. 1. Schematic of bending loss measurement system. FP-LD is a InGaAsP laser diode emitting at 655 nm wavelength.

Fig. 2. Relationship between polymerization temperature and of puried polymers, amount of remaining monomer. mers,

of bulk poly-

yield strength was determined from the point where the stress (indicated in the vertical axis) showed the local maximum stress against the strain of the ber sample (horizontal axis). The conditions were the same as those described in [18]. Measured elongation and load per unit cross-sectional area at yield point was compared with category A4b and A4c bers.7 IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. Appropriate Polymerization Temperature The relationships between the polymerization temperature and the of bulk polymers, of puried polymers, amount of the remaining monomer are shown in Fig. 2. It was conrmed that the of the puried polymer in which the remaining monomer was removed from the bulk polymer, was about 130 C for all the polymerization temperatures. On the other hand, the of the bulk polymer was varied depending upon the polymerization temperature. The amount of remaining monomer was negatively correlated with the of bulk polymer and the maximum and the minimum amount of monomer was obtained at the polymerization temperature of 120 C. It was suggested that the decreases in the of bulk polymer was attributed to the plasticization induced by the remaining monomer. Therefore, we fabricated all PTCEMA samples at the polymerization temperature of 120 C. B. Amount of Dopant for Core Polymer Fig. 3 shows the relationship between the of PTCEMA and the concentration of DPS. The decreases with the increase in DPS concentration because of the plasticization of the polymer. If we had chosen the PTCEMA as a cladding material, at least 7 wt.% DPS would have been necessary to be doped in the TCEMA to give sufcient N.A. (over 0.2) for the ber . Here, N.A. is expressed using the refractive indexes of core and cladding materials as (8) When N.A. is too low, the bending loss of a ber should increase. However, in this experiment, we used PMMA for
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Fig. 3. Relation between DPS concentration and

of PTCEMA bulk.

a cladding, which had a lower refractive index than the core material PTCEMA, and N.A. was high enough . In other words, the purpose of adding dopant was not to add enough N.A., but to give refractive index prole in the core region. Therefore, we added DPS 4.0 wt.% in core polymer (N.A. was 0.33). The lowest point of of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF resulted in 102 C, which was sufciently high for the home network. C. Theoretical dB Bandwidth

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Fig. 4(a) shows the comparison of material dispersions of the PTCEMA with the PMMA. Fig. 4(b) shows the relationship between the theoretical dB bandwidth and index exponent of the 50-m-PTCEMA and PMMA-based GI-POFs, respectively. We chose nm, which was the measured value of spectral width of the laser used here. From these results, theoretical bandwidth of PTCEMA-based GI-POF was estimated as 4.0 GHz for the 50-m-long ber at 655 nm with an optimum index exponent . This result indicated that the PTCEMA-based GI-POF possessed sufciently high bandwidth in comparison with PMMAbased GI-POF. We are supposed to show the theoretical bandwidth at 670680 nm. In our laboratory, however, there is not laser at 670680 nm, but 655 nm and we measured the bandwidth using an InGaAsP pulsed laser diode emitting at 655 nm

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Fig. 5. Experimental result of the bandwidth measurement of PTCEMA-based GI-POF using the time domain measurement method. Wavelength of a light source and a ber length were 655 nm and 40 m, respectively. FWHM of input pulse and output pulse were 147 and 300 ps, respectively.

Fig. 4. Transmission properties: (a) Comparison of Material dispersion of PTCEMA and PMMA. Black solid and broken lines are pure PMMA and pure PTCEMA, respectively. Grey solid and broken lines are PMMA doped with DPS 11 w.% and PTCEMA doped with DPS 4 wt.%, respectively; (b) -dependence of theoretical dB bandwidth of GI-POF. Light source and ber length were set to 655 nm and 50 m, respectively.

Fig. 6. Near-eld pattern of PTCEMA-based GI-POF.

wavelength (see Section 3.4.3). Therefore, we showed the theoretical bandwidth at 655 nm. We have conrmed that the difference of theoretical bandwidth between 655 and 670 nm wavelengths was small enough. D. Bandwidth In Fig. 5, the waveforms of the output and input pulses are compared for the ber of 40 m lenght. The bandwidth calculated by Fourier transform was 1.1 GHz. It was noted that the slight widening of the output pulse waveform was caused by the delayed arrival (time lag) of high order mode components, and such a group delay was observed due to the refractive index prole deviated from the optimum prole. Judging from Fig. 4(a), we could guess that value was too high (guessingly from the measurement result of bandwidth). The value of the fabricated GI-POF is given in the next Section 4.5. E. Radial Refractive Index Prole Fig. 6 shows a launch power prole of the 40-m-long PTCEMA-based GI-POF under the OML condition. Launch power sharply changes at the interfaces of core and cladding, and attens at the core area. From Fig. 6, it seems that the fabricated POF has a step-index prole. However, it was highly

conceivable that the intensity of output light from POF exceeded the detection limits, because the difference in refractive index between the core (PTCEMA-based material) and the cladding (PMMA-based material) was too large to analyze the refractive index prole. In addition, considering that the bandwidth result (1.1 GHz for 40 m) of the fabricated POF is much higher than that of a conventional SI-POF, the fabricated POF has a graded-index prole. F. Attenuation Fig. 7 shows the attenuation spectrum of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF where that of the PMMA-based GI-POF is also shown as a comparison. The result indicates that the intensities of higher harmonics induced by carbon-hydrogen (C-H) vibrational absorptions (attenuation peaks at 736 nm and 627 nm) were decreased. The attenuation of 61 dB/km at a wavelength of 655 nm and that of 104136 dB/km at a region of 670680 nm were sufciently diminished meeting the condition for home network use (desired value: dB/km) (Fig. 7, inset). Furthermore, the attenuation of PTCEMA-based GI-POF was reduced below 200 dB/km not only at a wavelength of 630700 nm but also at around 770 nm. Therefore, the PTCEMA-based GI-POF met the requirement not only for the home network. We can regard that the PTCEMA-based GI-POF has the lowest attenuation except peruorinated and deuterated GI-POF.

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TABLE I EXPERIMENTAL RESULT AND REQUIREMENT VALUE OF TENSION STRENGTH

Fig. 7. Attenuation spectra. The black line is PMMA-based GI-POF. The grey line is PTCEMA-based GI-POF. Inset shows magnied gures of attenuation at the neighboring wavelengths to the light source. Grey region shows attenuation at approximately 670680 nm, expected communication wavelength of homenetworks. The broken line shows the requested upper limit of attenuation in home-networks.

bending loss of bers can be achieved by increasing the N.A. and also decreasing the core diameters. The reason why the fabricated ber had low bending loss might be due to the relative high N.A. originated from the PMMA cladding. H. Tension Strength Load per unit cross-sectional area and elongation of yield point are shown in Table I with desired properties of category A4b and A4c. Both properties of the fabricated bers were superior to those of the categorized ber, and thus, high mechanical strength of the bers was conrmed. This good mechanical strength was caused by PMMA cladding. V. CONCLUSION The PTCEMA-based GI-POF with high-bandwidth, low attenuation, high thermal stability, high bending ability and high mechanical strength was experimentally demonstrated. The attenuation of our PTCEMA-based GI-POF was 104136 dB/km at 670680 nm, which was sufciently low for home networks. It was also demonstrated that the PTCEMA-based GI-POF could have the same or higher bandwidth as PMMA-based GI-POF, and the theoretical dB bandwidth was over 4.0 GHz for the 50-m-long ber by optimizing refractive index distribution. Moreover, the PMMA cladding allowed a reduction in the dopant feeding concentration in the core to ensure the high numerical aperture. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the PTCEMA-based GI-POF had high thermal stability and high bending ability. These results suggested that our proposed novel PTCEMA-based GI-POF should have all properties required for home networks, such as high bandwidth, low attenuation, high-thermal stability, and high bending ability. We believe that our GI POF has a signicant potential as future communication media for home networks. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank E. Nihei for fruitful discussions. They also thank Dr. T. Sassa and M. Kojima for their technical advice in writing this manuscript. REFERENCES
[1] K. Koike and M. Asai, The future of plastic optical ber, NPG Asia Mat., vol. 1, pp. 2228, 2009. [2] Y. Koike, High-bandwidth grade-index polymer optical bre, Polymer, vol. 32, pp. 17371745, 1991. [3] C. Tanaka, K. Kurashima, M. Naritomi, A. Kondo, and Y. Koike, The rst-loss and high-bandwidth 61-127 channel graded-index steric cores polymer waveguide, in Proc. OFC/IOOC, 2008, Paper OWG 6.

Fig. 8. Comparison of bending loss of PTCEMA-based GI-POF with other typical POF.

G. Bending Loss Fig. 8 shows the bending loss of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF, and it was compared to those of the CYTOP-based GI-POF, PMMA-based GI-POF and PMMA-based-SI POF. The PMMA-based SI-POF was jacket-covered, and others were bare bers. As shown in Fig. 8, the bending loss of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF was as low as that of the covered PMMA-based SI-POF, and was lower than those of the PMMA-based GI-POF and the CYTOP-based GI-POF. Particularly, bending loss of the PTCEMA-based GI-POF was about 0.2 dB at the bending radius of 10 mm. For home networks, the bending loss of approximately 0.5 dB should be acceptable, so it can be concluded that the bending loss of the PTCEMA-based GI POF was sufciently low. It is well known that the low

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[4] S. Randel et al., in Proc. Eur. Conf. Optical Commun., 2006, Paper Th 4.4.1.. [5] F. Breyer, S. C. J. Lee, S. Randel, and N. Hanik, 1.25 Gbit/s transmission over up to 100 m standard 1 mm step-index polymer optical bre using FFE or DFE Equalisation schemes, in Proc. Eur. Conf. Optical Commun. 9.6.6, 2007. [6] J. Lee, F. Breyer, S. Randel, H. van den Boom, and T. Koonen, Gigabit ethernet over standard step-index polymer optical ber, in Proc. Int. POF Conf., 2008, vol. 17, Paper WeA7-/4. [7] F. Breyer, S. C. J. Lee, S. Randel, and N. Hanik, PAM-4 signalling for gigabit transmission over standard step-index plastic optical bre using light emitting diodes, in Proc. ECOC, 2008, Paper We.2.A.3. [8] Y. Koike, T. Ishigure, and E. Nihei, High-bandwidth graded-index polymer optical ber, J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 14751489, Jul. 1995. [9] B. Boutevin, A. Rousseau, and D. Bosc, Accessible new acrylic monomers and polymers as highly transparent organic materials, J. Polym. Sci. Part A: Polymer Chemistry, vol. 30, pp. 12791286, 1992. [10] K. Koike, M. Fratisek, Y. Koike, and Y. Okamoto, Design and Synthesis of Graded Index Plastic Optical Fibers by Copolymeric System, Polymers for Advanced Technol., vol. 19, pp. 516520, 2008. [11] K. Koike, M. Fratisek, Y. Okamoto, and Y. Koike, Design, synthesis and characterization of a partially-chlorinated acrylic copolymer for low-loss and thermally-stable graded index plastic optical bers, J. Polym. Sci. Part A: Polymer Chemistry, vol. 47, pp. 33523361, 2009. [12] T. Ishigure, E. Nihei, and Y. Koike, Optimum refractive-index prole of the graded-index polymer optical ber, toward gigabit data links, Appl. Opt., vol. 35, pp. 20482053, 1996. _2O [13] J. W. Fleming, Material and mode dispersion in GeO _2, J. Amer. Cer. Soc., vol. 59, pp. 503507, 1976. [14] R. Olshansky and D. B. Keck, Pulse broadening in graded-index optical bers, Appl. Opt., vol. 15, pp. 483491, 1976. [15] M. Asai, R. Hirose, A. Kondo, and Y. Koike, High-bandwidth gradedindex plastic optical ber by the dopant diffusion coextrusion process, J. Lightwave Technol., vol. 25, no. 10, pp. 30623067, Oct. 2007. [16] F. M. E. Sladen, D. N. Payne, and M. J. Adams, Determination of optical ber refractive index proles by a near-eld scanning technique, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 28, pp. 255258, 1976. [17] K. I. White, Practical application of the refracted near-eld technique for the measurement of optical bre refractive index proles, Opt. Quantum Elect., vol. 11, pp. 185196, 1979. [18] T. Ishigure, M. Hirai, M. Sato, and Y. Koike, Graded-index plastic optical ber with high mechanical properties enabling easy network installations, J. Appl. Poym. Sci., vol. 91, pp. 404409, 2004.

Yukari Inuzuka was born in Hokkaido, Japan on September 15, 1985. She received the B.S. degree from Keio University, Yokohama, Japan in 2008.

Kotaro Koike was born in Toyama, Japan, in 1982. He received the B.S. degree in applied physics and physico-informatics from Keio University, Keio, Japan, in 2006. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in integrated design engineering from the Graduate School of Keio University, Keio, Japan, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. During his doctoral course, he worked as a Research Assistant for the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology and Solution-Oriented Research for Science and Technology (ERATO-SORST) project of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). He is presently a Research Associate at the Keio Photonics Research Institute, Keio University, Japan, and a Visiting Research Scholar at the Polytechnic Institute, New York University. His current research interest is developing novel photonics polymers with excellent transparency and achieving thermal stability for high-speed POFs, which will be key technologies of future automobile and aircraft networking.

Satoshi Takahashi received the M.Sc. degrees from University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 1986. He has been working on characterization, standardization and applied research of plastic optical ber for Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. from 1986 to 2003, for Fuji Film from 2003 to 2006, and currently at Exploratory Research for Advanced TechnologySolution Oriented Research for Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency.

Makoto Asai was born in Ibaraki, Japan, on September 15, 1981. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degree from Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, in 2005, 2006 and 2008, respectively. He is serving as Research Fellow of Institute for Solid State Physics of the University of Tokyo. His current studies focus on the unied theory of glass transition. From October 2006 to April 2007, he worked as Research Assistant for The 21st Century Center Of Excellence (COE) Program sponsored by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and from May 2007 to May 2009 as Research Assistant of the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology and Solution-Oriented Research for Science and Technology (ERATO-SORST) project of Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). From April 2009 to March 2011, he worked concurrently as Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and as Visiting Researcher with Keio University.

Yasuhiro Koike was born in Tokyo, Japan. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in applied chemistry from the Graduate School of Engineering of Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and 1982, respectively. He was a visiting researcher with AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1989 to 1990. He has been Professor of Keio University since 1997. He developed the high-bandwidth graded-index polymer optical ber GI POF, highly scattered optical transmission polymer HSOT, zero birefringence polymer, etc. He has conducted Koike Photonics Polymer Project in the ERATO-SORST program of Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). He also has been leading project entitled Face-to-Face Communication Business by Ultra High-Speed Plastic Optical Fiber and High-Denition Photonics Polymer in the FIRST program of Cabinet Ofce of Japan since March 2010. Dr. Koike received the International Engineering and Technology Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers in 1994, the Fujiwara Award in 2001, and an honor of Medal with Purple Ribbon in Palace in 2006. In 2007, he was conferred as an honorary doctorate from Eindhoven University of Technology.