UV-Curable High Temperature Resistant Dual Layer Coating System for Specialty Optical Fiber App...

About the Presenter: Dr. Huimin Cao is a Science Fellow at Science and Technology Group at Covestro. Her expertise is material science, with the focus on material properties and structure-property-performance relationships. She has extensive experience on UV-curable materials for optical fiber applications.

Abstract: Fiber optics technology has been applied into more and more varieties of specialty applications, where the optical fibers/cables are routinely used under harsh environments of high temperatures. The development of a reliable high temperature resistant coating system that can also meet the requirement of fast draw speed of fiber drawing process is highly desirable. In this work, a UV-curable dual layer acrylate coating system has been developed closely matching high temperature thermal stability of a commonly used UV-curable high temperature resistant single coat demonstrated with excellent field performance in the past 10 years. The high temperature thermal stability of the dual layer coating system was evaluated using weight loss by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), as well as mechanical property characterization by Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) of film samples, in comparison with a standard telecom grade dual layer coating system and the high temperature resistant single coat. The film study from the newly developed dual layer coating system has shown optimized balance between high temperature thermal stability similar to the single coat and improved mechanical properties over single coat as a soft/hard dual layer coating system.

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