In this work, we report the fabrication of an all-polymer multimaterial optical fiber based on two different grades of cyclo-olefin polymers (known as Zeonex) and the high-performance thermoplastic polysulfone (PSU) with glass transition temperature (T_g) of 189°C. The core/cladding structure using the Zeonex polymers (E48R/480R, respectively) was developed using a co-extrusion method followed by a rod-in-tube approach to form the final preform. The fiber materials were characterized in terms of their T_g, viscosity as well as refractive index profiles. The final preform was thermally drawn down to a fiber with ∼300 µm and ∼70 µm total and core diameter, respectively. We thermally characterized and compared our step-index fiber with a commercially available polymer (Cytop) as well as a purely Zeonex single-mode step-index fiber. The proposed multimaterial fiber exhibited stable operation at temperatures as high as 180°C being ∼35°C higher than any polymer fiber reported so far to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, we believe that our results constitute a significant step forward for the polymer optical fiber community making the proposed polymer multimaterial fiber an efficient route towards truly heat-resistant applications.

中文翻译：

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用于高温应用的全聚合物多材料光纤制造

在这项工作中，我们报告了基于两种不同等级的环烯烃聚合物（称为Zeonex）和玻璃化转变温度（T _g）的高性能热塑性聚砜（PSU）的全聚合物多材料光纤的制造。 189℃。使用共挤方法，然后使用棒-管方法形成最终的预成型件，从而开发出使用Zeonex聚合物（分别为E48R / 480R）的纤芯/覆层结构。纤维材料的T _g表征，粘度以及折射率曲线。将最终的预成型坯热拉成总直径和芯直径分别约为300μm和70μm的纤维。我们对阶跃折射率光纤与市售聚合物（Cytop）以及纯Zeonex单模阶跃折射率光纤进行了热特性分析和比较。所提出的多材料纤维在高达180°C的温度下表现出稳定的操作性能，这是迄今为止为止据我们所知所报告的任何聚合物纤维的约35°C。因此，我们认为我们的结果构成了聚合物光纤社区的重要一步，使所提出的聚合物多材料纤维成为通向真正耐热应用的有效途径。