Low-Loss 1 \times 2 Plastic Optical Fiber Coupler Incorporating a Tapered Polymeric Waveguide and Plastic Optical Fiber Transition Regions

We propose and demonstrate a low-loss 1 x 2 plastic optical fiber (POF) coupler incorporating a tapered polymeric waveguide and two POF transition regions. The design concept for acquiring a low optical loss is presented. The measured excess losses of coupler for the optical splitting and optical combining were 0.7 and 1.4 dB, respectively. (C) 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics