POF-PLUS - Fast and (user-) friendly

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Abstract:

The POF-PLUS project focuses on developing new photonic components and transmission technologies for large core plastic optical fibre (POF) systems, aiming at the unprecedented implementation of tens of Gbps transmission over this medium. The different flavours of large core POF with core diameters in the range of 1 millimetre allow us to envision an extremely simple installation technology, significantly more user friendly than traditional glass optical fibre (GOF) or even standard copper solutions (UTP, coaxial, etc). The extreme simplicity of POF has to date come at the expense of lower transmission capacity with respect to GOF. Strategies to overcome these limitations based on novel transmitter and receiver components are the core goal of POF-PLUS. POF-PLUS has a two-fold objective: 1. To help build the home networks of the future, which must deliver wired and wireless broadband services, by reducing the cost of ownership with respect to existing optical technologies and increasing performances in terms of speed and usability in terms of “do-it-yourself” installations. 2. To create the foundations and encourage the birth of new business models, which shall exploit the possibilities offered by unprecedented low-cost high speed interconnect.