The Optical Revolution of Silicone Oil in Fiber Coating
In the manufacturing of 5G communication optical fibers, the performance of the coating layer directly determines the quality of signal transmission. Traditional acrylic resins exhibit birefringence, while silicone oil coatings reduce the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) of optical fibers to below 0.05 ps/√ km through the isotropic arrangement of molecular chains.
According to experimental data from Corning, the additional loss of G.657 fiber coated with silicone oil decreased from 0.5dB/turn to 0.08dB/turn at a bending radius of 5mm. This performance breakthrough is due to the low modulus characteristic of silicone oil (only 0.5MPa at 25 ℃), which can effectively release the bending stress of optical fibers. What is more noteworthy is that the weather resistant silicone oil developed by introducing fluorinated groups can still maintain a stable coating adhesion of ≥ 5N/cm during temperature cycling from -40 ℃ to 85 ℃.