MURRAY HILL, N.J., June 12 -- Lucent Technologies said that it will use CYTOP material made by Asahi Glass Co. of Japan to develop a new line of graded index plastic optical fiber (GI-POF) products. The new optical fiber is expected to enhance the capabilities of Lucent's specialty fiber business and will be sold for short-distance specialty fiber applications that require fiber links shorter than 100 meters. We have broken the speed and distance barriers that have limited the use of conventional plastic optical fiber in some specialty applications, while preserving the easy connector mounting possible with other types of plastic fiber, said Xina Quan, director of Photonics Packaging Research at Bell Labs, which does research and development for Lucent.The graded index plastic optical fiber will support transmitters using wavelengths from 850 nm to 1300 nm. The new fiber will support higher transmission speeds and longer link lengths than conventional plastic fiber, but the maximum link lengths are considerably shorter than those supported by glass multimode fibers, Lucent said.