Effects of End-Face Tilt Angle on Numerical Aperture for Straight and Bent Plastic Optical Fibers

Numerical aperture (NA) is an important parameter of optical fibers. The larger it is, the greater the amount of light input into the fiber and, hence, the greater the achievable transmission distance. In this article, analytical functions are given for numerical aperture of an angle-ended plastic optical fiber in terms of the tilt angle of its input/output face. This tilt may be intentional, as in biomedical spectroscopic sensors, or otherwise when exploiting the quick interconnectivity potential of plastic fibers. The influence of fiber curvature on its numerical aperture has also been quantified as the functions given cover both straight and curved fiber configurations.