Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J., has announced plans to develop graded-index plastic optical fiber products based on the Cytop fluoropolymer produced by Asahi Glass Co. Ltd. of Tokyo. The product line will target specialty fiber applications requiring high data rates at wavelengths from 850 to 1300 nm and over distances less than 100 m.

According to Lucent, the 120-µm-core plastic fiber will offer lower-cost solutions for short-haul applications and ease connector alignment. Cytop displays transmittance better than 95 percent from 200 nm to 2 µm and features a refractive index of 1.34.