22/09/2026
At EPIC’s Online Technology Meeting on Fibers for Medical Applications, SHUTE CCO Kristian Rode yesterday presented SHUTEs polymer optical fibers in general, and the groundbreaking new BLACKHOLE High NA 1.0 PMMA optical fiber in particular.
Apart from flexibility and bending radius, POFs in general have a higher Numerical Aperture (NA), than silica fibers.
The typical high NA POF has an NA of 0.5, where silica fibers generally deliver much less, typically 0.22-0.37.
By combining SHUTEs know-how of microstructured POFs with traditional multi-layer POFs, we are now introducing the BLACKHOLE High NA 1.0, with an NA close to one (~1).
A fiber with NA of 0.8 will theoretically deliver 156% more light than a similar size fiber with NA of 0.5.
Using the SHUTE signature holes as a cladding it allows us to produce a High NA POF from PMMA only, hence avoiding Fluoropolymer materials for cladding.
High NA fibers deliver:
✅Maximum light capture: The very high NA provides a much larger acceptance cone, allowing more light to be coupled into the fiber.
✅High alignment tolerance: Less precise alignment is required between the light source, fiber and detector - potentially reducing assembly complexity and cost.
✅Simpler optical design: The fiber can reduce the need for precision optics and sophisticated coupling arrangements, particularly in compact sensor and instrumentation systems.
SHUTE polymer fibers are meeting a lot of interest in the med tech area, now serving customers in both the EU, UK and USA. This new BLACKHOLE High NA 1.0 fiber could be interesting for e.g., endoscopes, delivering more light per area than existing fibers on the market.
Finally, a special thanks to EPIC, Vera Koniukhova and Antonio Castelo for making SHUTE part of the presenting line-up.
