It may look like little more than fishing line, but plastic optical fibre or POF promises to revolutionise high-speed last-mile communications networks. Its evolution is being aided by groundbreaking research in Europe.

Plastic optical fibre (POF) for data transmission is often described as the “consumer” version of glass optical fibre, the kind that makes up the long-distance trunk routes of telecommunications networks. Flexible plastic fibres, with a core diameter of 1mm and made from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), are cheap to produce, easy to install and transmit light in the visible range as opposed to infrared, making maintenance easier and safer. But those properties typically come at the expense of lower bandwidth and high attenuation, restricting their use to sending data over short distances at relatively low speeds.

As a result, POF networks have mostly been used as an alternative to copper wires for short-distance — or so-called last-mile — data transmission. In offices and homes, POF has become a popular alternative for setting up local area networks (LANs), while in cars plastic fibres have replaced copper for sending video signals to onboard entertainment systems or obtaining data from sensors. That, however, is but a fraction of the potential uses for the technology.

Groundbreaking research by a team of European scientists working in the EU-funded POLYCOM project has helped put POF on track for use in optical computing, ultra-high-speed LANs, new sensing devices and even clothing that lights up for safety or simply fashion.

“The range of applications for POF and the optical technology that underlies it is extensive… and its development beyond the current state of the art could benefit a wide range of sectors over the coming years,” explains Guglielmo Lanzani, a researcher at Milan Technical University and coordinator of POLYCOM.

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Tags: local area networks, optical technology, plastic optical fibre, pof, speed lans

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