Study of polarization in plastic optical fibers

摘要

In this paper a deep and systematic study of polarization properties in plastic optical fibers (POFs) is presented. The degree of polarization of the light emerging from small POF samples has been analyzed under different type of conditions. Experimental data shows that the strong depolarization effect associated with the propagation of light in POFs is motivated not only by the birefringent nature of the fiber, but also by the quality of the core-cladding interface, bulk scattering and the multimodal nature of the fiber. Parameters such as fiber core radius or launching conditions are determinant in the depolarization process of the light.