In today’s era information is being shared through various modes. For example, in the case of a telephone it is being done through a wire cable that transmits the sound from our voice to a telephone exchange or in case of a cell phone it is through invisible radio waves.Apart from the above-mentioned modes of transmitting data, there is another way through Optical fibers where information is coded in a beam of light down a glass or plastic pipe.
A Fiber-Optic cable consists of numerous thin strands of Optical Fibers and the cable can have a minimum of two strands or several hundred as well. These strands have the capability to carry around 25000 telephone calls. Thus, an entire cable can carry millions of calls with high speed and it is not prone to error. For example, when a person wants to send any data or information from his computer to his or her friend through fiber optics, the computer tagged with a laser which converts the information (in electrical medium) into a series of light pulses. The laser passes through the cable and reaches at the receiver’s end which is equipped with a photoelectric cell that converts the pulses of light into electrical information so that it can be interpreted by the computer.
If we look at the nitty-gritty behind the working methodology of optical cable, it is basically each photon (a particle of light) gets transmitted through Total Internal reflection i.e. it hits the glass at a shallow angle (less than 42 degrees) and reflects again and again. Apart from the above-mentioned phenomenon that keeps light inside the pipe, there is also one more extra feature which restricts the light from emerging out of the cable is the structure of the cable. The cable consists of two parts primarily the core and another one called cladding. The core is that part of the cable through which light is being transmitted. It is surrounded by another layer of glass called cladding whose main objective is to keep the light signals inside the core. It can be done through cladding because it is made up of the different types of glass material and has a lower refractive index that restricts the light from going outside of the core.
Optical fiber is basically of two types-Multimode fiber and single mode fiber. Single mode fiber has a small diameter of the glass fiber core which reduces the possibility of a reduction in signal strength. Thus, it is being widely used for long distances so that attenuation can be minimized. Also, Single-mode fiber has a smaller opening that isolates the light into a single beam which offers a more direct route and thus it helps to transmit for a longer distance. Single mode fiber has a higher bandwidth compared to Multimode fiber and it is expensive because the calculations need to be accurate to transmit laser light in a smaller opening. Multimode is primarily used for short distances because it has a larger core that allows light signals to reflect more along the way. As there is a large diameter it allows multiple pulses to be transmitted through the cable that leads to more data transmission which could create a possibility of signal loss reduction or interference. Also, Multi-mode fiber uses LED to create a light pulse whereas Single mode fiber uses Laser instead.
One of the manufacturers of optical fiber is World Precision Instruments who have over 50 years of experience and offices and distributors over the globe.
Optical fiber is being widely used in different fields, for example, computer networks, military, medicine, etc. In the case of Computer networks, fiber optic cables are used for carrying data because it has less attenuation interference and higher bandwidth. Also, in medicine, it is being widely used as it helped the doctor to look inside our bodies without cutting them. As Optical Fiber is inexpensive, secure, robust against attack, it is being widely used in the Military field for its reliability, connecting military bases launching missiles and many other fields.
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