Cellulose optical fiber

Cellulose is environmentally friendly material that has brought new possibilities for light guiding and manipulation. Regenerated cellulose fibers and methylcellulose fibers have been demon-strated. These optical fibers are not competing in optical telecommunication with glass optical fiber and polymer optical fibers. Attenuation with regenerated cellulose fiber is about 6 dB/cm and with methylcellulose fibers 1.47 dB/cm. These values are several orders of magnitudes higher than with common glass and polymer fibers. These bio based cellulose materials have however properties that the common optical fiber do not have. Cellulose fibers are biodegradable that is benefit for example in human body measurements. Regenerated cellulose can take water or other liquids very fast in and also dry out as fast. Cellulose offers versatile material modification possibilities, for example methylcellu-lose has been doped with luminescent gold nanoclusters, and rod-like cellulose nanocrystals