To produce polymer optical fibers in research environments, a flexible cladding material-application process is required. Further, to functionalize the waveguide, the fiber core-production step needs to be separated from the cladding application, contrasting conventional polymer optical fiber production processes. In this study, we developed a solution using continuous dip-coating technique to apply cladding material onto previously extruded polymer optical fiber cores with diameters as low as 16 µm. The process was designed considering the fluid-dynamic behavior of the cladding material and fiber to achieve a radially symmetric coating thickness. We examined UV-curable resin as cladding and polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA)-based extruded optical fibers with diameters of up to 16 µm. The proposed method helped continuously coat optical fiber cores with cladding material with diameters in the range of 1 mm and achieve the lowest optical attenuation (<3 dB/m).

为了在研究环境中生产聚合物光纤，需要灵活的包层材料应用过程。此外，为了使波导功能化，纤芯生产步骤需要与包层应用分开，这与传统的聚合物光纤生产工艺形成对比。在这项研究中，我们开发了一种使用连续浸涂技术的解决方案，将包层材料应用到先前挤出的直径低至 16 µm 的聚合物光纤芯上。该工艺的设计考虑了包层材料和光纤的流体动力学行为，以实现径向对称的涂层厚度。我们研究了作为包层的紫外线固化树脂和直径高达 16 µm 的聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯 (PMMA) 基挤出光纤。