A New Physical Layer Capable of Record Gigabit Transmission Over 1 mm Step Index Polymer Optical Fiber

In this paper we present the latest results from the POF-PLUS EU Project, demonstrating record transmission of a Gigabit Ethernet compliant stream over 75m of 1mm PMMA SI-POF with 2.5 dB system margin, and over 50 m with 7 dB system margin, in both cases using commercial RC-LED. We believe this is an unprecedented results, showing for the first time that the target distance of 50 meters is reachable with a large system margin. The results were made possible by a careful optimization of the physical layer architecture, which is explained in detail in this paper. The system is experimentally demonstrated over realistic digital stream at the transmitter and real time processing at the receiver.