Optical waveguides – Having particular optical characteristic modifying chemical... – Of waveguide cladding
Patent
1991-07-17
1993-02-16
Healy, Brian
Optical waveguides
Having particular optical characteristic modifying chemical...
Of waveguide cladding
385123, 385144, 385141, 430 56, 427163, 4274071, G02B 600, G03G 1500, B05D 506
Patent
active
051877708
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a photosetting resin composition and a plastic clad optical fiber having a cladding made of a cured material of said composition.
RELATED ART
Hitherto, a silicone resin (Japanese Patent Kokai Publication No. 30703/1983), a polyfluoroalkyl methacrylate copolymer (Japanese Patent Kokai Publication No. 66706/1986) and a vinylidene fluoride/tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (Japanese Patent Publication (Kokoku) No. 41966/1981) are known as cladding materials of a plastic clad optical fiber. However, these cladding materials cannot satisfy recent high requirements such as decrease of a transmission loss of the optical fiber and an easy connection of a connector by a crimp procedure. For example, when the silicone resin is used, the optical fiber cannot terminated with the crimp type connector since the mechanical strength is insufficient. When the vinylidene fluoride/tetrafluoroethylene copolymer is used, the optical fiber cannot have a low loss since the copolymer has poor transparency. When the polyfluoroalkyl methacrylate copolymer is used, the strength between the fiber and the crimp type connector is significantly deteriorated at a high temperature since the copolymer has a low softening point but has good transparency.
Recently, a cladding made of an ultraviolet light curing resin composition is proposed as described in Japanese Patent Kokai Publication No. 250047/1987 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,707,076. Since such resin composition can have advantageously has high mechanical strength and an increased production rate of the optical fiber although the prior art optical fibers do not have these advantages.
However, since the resin compositions described in these prior art literatures contain a compound which has only one unsaturated bond in a molecule (such as monofunctional acrylate), the cured material has an insufficient crosslinking density. Thus, hardness and heat resistance (a softening temperature) are not sufficiently high in practice, and the optical fiber has significantly deteriorated mechanical properties at a high temperature. In addition, the resin composition swells and significantly softens by moisture at high humidity. In particular, the retention strength between the optical fiber and the crimp type connector is significantly deteriorated at a high temperature or at a high temperature and a high humidity. Further, the optical fiber has a disadvantage that the core largely protrudes from a tip end of the connector after leaving the optical fiber at a high temperature or at a high temperature and a high humidity or after subjecting the optical fiber to a heat cycle.
These disadvantages seem to be caused by a low softening point since the composition contains the monofunctional unsaturated compound and has the low crosslinking density.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a plastic clad optical fiber having good mechanical strength and mechanical properties, particularly retention strength between a crimp type connector and the optical fiber, which are not deteriorated at a high temperature.
The present invention is intended to increase a crosslinking density of a resin composition so as to improve the mechanical strength and softening temperature and so as to suppress the swell by moisture at a high humidity.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a photosetting resin composition comprising at least one compound which has at least two unsaturated bonds in a molecule and a photopolymerization initiator, no compound which has only one unsaturated bond in a molecule being present in the composition.
The photosetting composition according to the present invention gives a cured material having higher hardness at a normal temperature and a higher softening temperature than the conventional compositions which contain the monofunctional unsaturated compound. Thus, an optical fiber having a cladding made of a cured material of the composition of the present invention suffers from less deterioration of the re
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Mishima Takayuki
Nishimoto Hiroaki
Okuda Yasuhiro
Healy Brian
Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd.
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