Global characterization of optical power propagation in step-index plastic optical fibers.

We propose to characterize optical power transmission in stepindex plastic optical fibers by estimating fiber diffusion and attenuation as functions of the propagation angle. We assume that power flow is described by Gloge s differential equation and find a global solution that was fitted to experimental far field patterns registered using a CCD camera as a function of fiber length. The diffusion and attenuation functions obtained describe completely the fiber behavior and thus, along with the power flow equation, can be used to predict the optical power distribution for any condition.