4 × 4 Plastic Optical Fiber Star Coupler Incorporated with a Common Polymer Waveguide Optical Power Distribution Region

Abstract Two types of 4 × 4 plastic optical fiber star couplers incorporated with a polymer waveguide as the optical power distributor are proposed, and their high performances are demonstrated. The characteristics of the proposed star coupler are investigated based on ray optics, and its power distribution performance is evaluated in terms of the flatness of the coupling ratio and the amount of the excess loss. Under the best conditions, the flatness of the coupling ratio and the excess loss of the fabricated device have been obtained as 2.0 dB and 2.5 dB, respectively.