Etching PMMA optical fibre

Oct 27, 2004 6 Replies

Hello everybody.



I'm completely new to polimer etching. I'm searching for something to etch a polymer (PMMA) optical fibre (POF). I have to remove the cladding, that is a 20 micrometer layer coating the fibre. I'm thinking about using toluene, that is used to remove the polymer jaket of silica fibre. The problem is that the fibre in use is all made in PMMA, so that the etching must be an exposure time-etching. Any suggestions???? Thanks a lot



Nicola


Try methylethyl ketone. It is a good solvent for PMMA. You may also try plasma etching, but it may take awhile to etch through 20 microns.

Jeff

Lots of solvents for PMMA but I believe she wants to remove the cladding. Some are fluorocarbons and probably insoluble except in anything that also dissolves the PMMA. Frank

Hi guys...

Yes, I want to remove the cladding. It should be made of fluorine polymers, while the core is in PMMA. I assumed is not possible to find something that etches only the cladding... Right??

Nicola

That's what I'm saying. Frank

Hi all:

I am looking for a solvent which can dissolve PDMS but can't dissolve PMMA. And has density closer to one.

Your help will be appreciated.

Mukhija

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PDMS doesn't dissolve quickly, regardless of the solvent, but it will go into heptane. The PMMA should be fine, but the density of heptane (and other alkanes) is low, ~ 0.7.

Completely deuterated heptane is available with a density of 0.8 ;) John

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