TY - JOUR A1 - Appajaiah, Anilkumar A1 - Wachtendorf, Volker A1 - Daum, Werner T1 - Climatic exposure of polymer optical fibers: Thermooxidative stability characterization by chemiluminescence N2 - The optical transmission stability was investigated for commercially available polymer optical fibers (POFs) which were exposed to a climate of 92°C and 95% relative humidity for about 3300 h. The optical transmission stability of POFs was correlated to their thermooxidative stability. POFs possessed identical core material, poly(methyl methacrylate), but they differed in the materials used for the claddings. The optical transmission was measured online using a prototype device called multiplexer. The chemiluminescence (CL) technique was applied to characterize the thermooxidative stability and degradation of POFs. CL analysis reveals the thermooxidative degradation of bare POFs (core and cladding), predominantly of the claddings, as a result of climatic exposure. Ultraviolet-visible transmittance measurements demonstrated more changes in the claddings as compared to the cores due to degradation. The CL and optical measurements data indicated that the optical transmission stability of POFs was dependent mainly on the thermooxidative stability of the claddings and their chemical compositions. KW - Ageing KW - Polymer optical fiber KW - Degradation KW - Chemiluminescence KW - Transparency PY - 2007 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/app.23955 SN - 0021-8995 SN - 1097-4628 VL - 103 IS - 3 SP - 1593 EP - 1601 PB - Wiley InterScience CY - Hoboken, NJ AN - OPUS4-19072 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -