PLASTIC OPTICAL FIBER HAVING SATISFACTORY OPTICAL TRANSMISSION PROPERTY

摘要

PURPOSE:To obtain a fiber having superior transmission efficiency and making absorption in the ultraviolet region independent of that in the visible region by pretreating a methyl methacrylate monomer with zeolite, purifying it by vacuum distillation, and using the purified monomer as the principal component of the core material of an optical fiber. CONSTITUTION:A methyl methacrylate monomer is pretreated with 1-30wt% commercially available zeolite having preferably 4-10Angstrom effective pore size such as ''Molecular Sieves 4A'', and the monomer is purified by vacuum distillation to remove trace impurities. The purified monomer having no absorbing power but absorbing light in the visible and ultraviolet regions when polymerized is used to manufacture a polymer for the core material of an optical fiber. It is preferable that a homo- or copolymer of a fluorinated monomer having a lower refractive index than the core material and relatively high transparency is used as the sheath material, a fiber having a small optical transmission loss and superior strength is obtd.