Charles E. Forbes

Large-core, high-bandwidth polymer optical fiber for near infrared use

High bandwidth (more than 500 MHz/spl middot/km) graded-index polymer optical fiber (GI POF) for near infra-red use was successfully fabricated by using partially fluorinated acrylate polymer. Since only three carbon-hydrogen bonds exist in a monomer unit, an absorption loss due to the stretching vibration of the carbon-hydrogen bond was remarkably reduced compared with the conventional POFs. The attenuation of the GI POF at 780-nm wavelength was 135 dB/km, which is much lower than that of the PMMA core POF (800 dB/km). The fluorinated polymer-based GI POF is satisfying a significant segment of high-speed multimedia network applications.<<ETX>>

Accelerated aging studies for polycarbonate optical disk substrates

Accelerated aging studies demonstrated that polycarbonate substrates degrade by a hydrolytic cleavage of the polymer chain. Data collected at different temperatures obeyed an Arrhenius relation. The activation energy for polycarbonate degradation was 68.0 kJ/mol.

Accelerated Aging Studies for Organic Optical Data Storage Media

The excellent stability of Hoechst Celanese WORM media was demonstrated in accelerated aging studies. CNR data was measured as a function of exposure time for disks exposed to 65°/80% RH, 80°/80% RH, and 90°/80% RH. Disks were also exposed to a high intensity xenon lamp to compare the relative stability to visible and ultraviolet radiation. The stability of the polycarbonate substrate and the recording layer were investigated.