Primary coatings for optical fibers having short gel times

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9563013-B2
Application number	US-201514970970-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 16, 2015
Priority date	Dec 10, 2013
Publication date	Feb 7, 2017
Grant date	Feb 7, 2017

Abstract

A coated optical fiber includes an optical fiber; and a primary coating encapsulating the optical fiber, the primary coating having an in-situ modulus of about 0.12 MPa or less at a thickness of about 32.5 μm, a Young's modulus as a cured film of about 0.7 MPa or less, and a T g of about −22° C. or below, wherein the primary coating is the cured reaction product of a primary curable composition having a gel-time ratio relative to C1 of less than about 2.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. An optical fiber coating comprising the cured product of a curable coating composition having a gel-time ratio relative to C1 of less than about 2 and more than about 1.1, said coating having an in-situ modulus of about 0.12 MPa or less at a thickness of about 32.5 μm, a Young's modulus as a cured film of about 0.7 MPa or less, and a Tg below −22° C. and above −40° C.

2. The optical fiber coating of claim 1 , wherein said primary coating has an in-situ modulus of about 0.08 MPa or less at a thickness of about 22.5 μm.

3. The optical fiber coating of claim 1 , wherein said coating exhibits a Mooney stress, when measured in an uniaxial tensile test and represented in a relative Mooney plot, equal to or less than 1.155 for the strain value of 1/λ=0.45.

4. The optical fiber coating of claim 1 , wherein said curable coating composition comprises one or more monofunctional (meth) acrylate monomers in an amount of from about 5 to 95% by weight; an N-vinyl amide monomer in an amount of from about 0.1 to 40% by weight; and one or more difunctional urethane acrylate oligomers in an amount of from about 5 to 95% by weight.

5. The optical fiber coating of claim 4 , wherein said urethane acrylate oligomer is a reaction product of a polyol and an isocyanate.

6. The optical fiber coating of claim 5 , wherein said polyol is polypropylene glycol.

7. The optical fiber coating of claim 5 , wherein said isocyanate is an aliphatic diisocyanate.

8. The optical fiber coating of claim 5 , wherein said curable coating composition further comprises a thiol compound.

9. The optical fiber coating of claim 4 , wherein said curable coating composition comprises one or more monofunctional (meth) acrylate monomers in an amount of from about 40 to 65% by weight; an N-vinyl amide monomer in an amount of from about 2 to 10% by weight; and one or more difunctional urethane acrylate oligomers in an amount of from about 35 to 55% by weight.

Assignees

• Corning Inc

Inventors

• Ocampo Manuela

Classifications

• C08G18/672

  Esters of acrylic or alkyl acrylic acid having only one group containing active hydrogen · CPC title

• C08F226/06

  by a heterocyclic ring containing nitrogen · CPC title

• G02B6/03638

  having 3 layers only · CPC title

• C08F220/20

  of polyhydric alcohols or phenols {, e.g. 2-hydroxyethyl (meth)acrylate or glycerol mono-(meth)acrylate} · CPC title

• G02B1/048

  characterised by the cladding material · CPC title