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Introduction: An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of silica or plastic, sl ightly thicker thecially designed fibers are

used for a variety of other applica tions, including sensors and fiber lasers. Optical fibers typically incluex of refraction. Light is kept in the core by tot al internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Types of Optical Fibers: yyyyyyyyyyyyy 1. Single-mode fiber: Fiber supporting only one mode is called single-modeons and the boundary conditi ons. These modes define the way the wave travels through space, i.e. how the wav e is distributed in space. Waves can have the same mode but have different frequ encies. This is the case in single-mode fibers, where we can have waves with dif ferent frequencies, but of the same mode, which means that they are distributed in space in the same way, and that gives us a single ray of light. The most common type of single-mode fiber has a core diameter of 8 10 micrometers and is designed for use in the near infrared. The mode structure depends on the wavelength of the light used, so that this fiber actually supports a small numbe r of additional modes at visible wavelengths. 2. Multi-mode fiber: Fibby geometrical optics. Such fiber is called multhyghghgi-mode fiber. In a ste p-index multi-mode fiber, rays of light are guided along the fiber core by total internal reflection. Rays that meet the core-claddionvey light and hence inform ation along the fiber. The critical angle determines the acceptance angle of the fiber, often reported as a numerical aperture. A high numerical aperture allows light to propagate down the fiber in rays both close to the axis and at various angles, allowing efficient coupling of light into the fiber. However, this high numerical aperture increases the amount of dispersion as rays at different angl es have different path lengths and therefore take different times to traverse th e fiber. 3. Special-purpose fiber Some special-purpose optical fiber is constructed with a non-cylindrical core an d/or cladding layer, usually with an elliptical or rectangular cross-section. Th ese include polarization-maintaining fiber and fiber designed to suppress whispe ring gallery mode propagation. Polarization-maintaining fibers are unique type o f fibers that is commonly used in fiber optic sensors due to its ability to main tain the polarization of the light inserted in it.

Applications: 1. Optical fiber communication

Optical fiber can be used as a medium for telecommunication and computer network ing because it is flexible and can be bundled as cables. It is especially advant ageous for long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fi ber with little attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows long dist ances to be spanned with few repeaters.Each fiber can carry many independent cha nnels, each using a different wavelength of light (wavelength-division multiplex ing (WDM)). The net data rate per fiber is the per-channel data rate reduced by the FEC overhead, multiplied by the number of channels (usually up to eighty in commercial dense WDM systems as of 2008). For short distance application, such as a network in an office building, fiber-o ptic cabling can save space in cable ducts. This is because a single fiber can c arry much more data than electrical cables. Fiber is also immune to electrical i nterference; there is no cross-talk between signals in different cables, and no pickup of environmental noise. Non-armored fiber cables do not conduct electrici ty, which makes fiber a good solution for protecting communications equipment in high voltage environments, such as power generation facilities, or metal commun ication structures prone to lightning strikes. They can also be used in environm ents where explosive fumes are present, without danger of ignition. 2. Fiber optic sensors Optical fibers can be used as sensors to measure strain, temperature, pressure a nd other quantities by modifying a fiber so that the property to measure modulat es the intensity, phase, polarization, wavelength, or transit time of light in t he fiber. Sensors that vary the intensity of light are the simplest, since only a simple source and detector are required and they can provide distributed sensi ng over distances of up to one meter. Common uses for fiber optic sensors includes advanced intrusion detection securi ty systems. The light is transmitted along a fiber optic sensor cable placed on a fence, pipeline, or communication cabling, and the returned signal is monitore d and analysed for disturbances. This return signal is digitally processed to de tect disturbances and trip an alarm if an intrusion has occurred. Extrinsic fiber which measure vibration, rotation, displacement, velocity, accel eration, torque, and twisting also use an optical fiber cable for sensing. 3. Illumination: Optical fibers are widely used in illumination applications. They are used as li ght guides in medical and other applications where bright light needs to be shon e on a target without a clear line-of-sight path. In some buildings, optical fib ers route sunlight from the roof to other parts of the building. 4. Imaging Optics: Optical fiber is also used in imaging optics. A coherent bundle of fibers is use d, sometimes along with lenses, for a long, thin imaging device called an endosc ope, which is used to view objects through a small hole. Medical endoscopes are used for minimally invasive exploratory or surgical procedures. Industrial endos

copes (see fiberscope or borescope) are used for inspecting anything hard to rea ch, such as jet engine interiors. Many microscopes use fiber-optic light sources to provide intense illumination of samples being studied. 4. Spectrometer: In spectroscopy, optical fiber bundles transmit light from a spectrometer to a s ubstance that cannot be placed inside the spectrometer itself, in order to analy ze its composition. A spectrometer analyzes substances by bouncing light off of and through them. By using fibers, a spectrometer can be used to study objects r emotely. 5. Power Supply: Optical fiber can also be used to supply a low level of power (around one watt) to electronics situated in a difficult electrical environment. Examples of this are electronics in high-powered antenna elements and measurement devices used in high voltage transmission equipment. Principle of operation: The propagation of light through the core of an optical fiber is based on total internal reflection of the lightwave. Rough and irregular surfaces, even at the molecular level, can cause light rays to be reflected in random directions. Thi s is called diffuse reflection or scattering, and it is typically characterized by wide variety of reflection angles.To confine the optical signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the cladding. The boundary between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in step-index fiber , or gradual, in graded-index fiber. When light traveling in an optically dense medium hits a boundary at a steep ang le (larger than the critical angle for the boundary), the light is completely re flected. This is called total internal reflection. This effect is used in optica l fibers to confine light in the core. Light travels through the fiber core, bou ncing back and forth off the boundary between the core and cladding. Because the light must strike the boundary with an angle greater than the critical angle, o nly light that enters the fiber within a certain range of angles can travel down the fiber without leaking out.The size of this acceptance cone is a function of the refractive index difference between the fiber's core and cladding. Advantages of Optical Fiber over Conventional Copper System The advantages of optical fiber communication with respect to copper wire system s are:1. Broad Bandwidth Broadband communication is very much possible over fiber optics which means that audio signal, video signal, microwave signal, text and data from computers can be modulated over light carrier wave and demodulated by optical receiver at the other end.It is possible to transmit around 3,00,000 two ways voice or 90,000 TV channels over one optical fiber. 2. Immunity to Electromagnetic Interference Optical fiber cables are carrying the information over light waves which are tra veling in the fibers due to the properties of the fiber materials, there are no pick up of signals, means immune to conductive and radiative interfaces caused b

y electrical noise from vehicles lighting and other sources and power cables adj acent to fiber cables even there is no effect of electromagnetic pulse generated by nuclear devices. So,electromagnetic interference with the light wave traveli ng inside the optical fiber cables does not exist. 3. Low attenuation loss over long distances There are various optical windows in the optical fiber cable at which the attenu ation loss is found to be comparatively low and so transmitter and receiver devi ces are developed and used in these low attenuation region. Due to low attenuati on in optical fiber cables, it is possible to achieve long distance communicatio n efficiently over information capacity rate of 1 Tbit/s. 4 Electrical Insulator Optical fibers are made and drawn from silica glass which is nonconductor of ele ctricity and so there are no ground loops and leakage of any type of current. Op tical fibers are thus laid down along with high voltage cables on the electricit y polls due to its electrical insulator behavior.

Practical Issues: Optical fiber cables: In practical fibers, the cladding is usually coated with a tough resin buffer la yer, which may be further surrounded by a jacket layer, usually glass. These lay ers add strength to the fiber but do not contribute to its optical wave guide pr operties. Rigid fiber assemblies sometimt5yg6y6

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