Evaluation of Illumination Intensity of Plastic Optical Fibres with TiO2 Particles by Laser Treatment

CO2 laser treatment can increase the surface roughness of plastic optical fibres (POFs) with the diameter of 0.5 mm and enhance the input intensity and attenuation coefficient accordingly, which is supposed to weaken the side emission of POFs in long distance above 375 mm. TiO2 particles were applied to improve the increasing optical loss of POFs by laser treatment. POFs were first modified with fine TiO2 particles and then treated by CO2 laser with the pixel time from 30 to 120 ìs. The surface morphology was observed by scanning electron microscopy to investigate the changes of micro-structure before and after laser treatment and the distribution of TiO2 particles. The illumination intensity and attenuation coefficient were calculated and compared in two methods. It is visible that the evaluation by model LLF2 with two parts is more suitable for the fitting of experimental data and shows higher input intensity and lower attenuation than that by standard power function. Both the evaluation methods exhibit that the utilization of TiO2 particles could play an active role in the enhancement of side emission of POFs treated by CO2 laser.