Fiber Optics - What's So Great About It?

Just what the label says- data transferred by
light along fibers (basically)

Here are three things I know about you:

• You may be under the impression that fiber optics refers mainly to internet transmissions
• You sort of maybe think you know what they are
• You either completely agree with the comments above or were offended by them.

If you feel offended I recommend wasting your precious time feeling offended and arrogant instead of reading this and learning. As this won't affect me in any way whatsoever. I'll tell you a story about that in the next post ;).

So anyway, you have two options:

1. Read the long, boring account by clicking here.
2. Read this post and get all the information for half the price. Every little helps.

So, anyway lets get down to what fiber optics actually are.

Now I'm sure you've heard of fiber optic cables. In short they are long strands of pure glass which act like electrical wires, except they transmit the information using light (infra-red radiation wavelength). They're as thin as human hairs and look something like the branches on those little decorative trees with light coming out of the ends. They can transmit digital information over long distances and have many (other than super-fast internet) in lots of different categories, here are just a few:

• Tiny cameras which can see inside really small areas
• Lasers for surgery
• Light guides - they can shine bright lights on hard to reach places
• A variety of sensory equipment

You can see more here.

You need lots of optical fibers to produce something usable as they are so thin, and so lots of these bundled together are collectively called a fiber optic bundle.

The composition of a fiber-optic cable

It's amazing to see how you could engineer these wires ,even though they are so thin, to make them up of three layers. Each of the wires are made up of three main parts.

Core - The thin glass tube at the center which the light travels along

Buffer Coating - The middle part which basically acts as a shield to protect the wire

Cladding - The outer coating which reflects the light back to the core to prevent loss of information

There are two types of fiber-optic cable

1. Single-mode fibers - Transmit data via infra-red laser radiation
2. Multi-mode fibers - Transmit data from LEDs via infra-red radiation

I will talk more about radiation and the electromagnetic spectrum in later posts (if you're interested)

So how does the light get through the wire? You may or may not have been wondering.

Well, since light travels in straight lines, it doesn't bend along the wire. It basically bounces along the wire in zigzags, getting reflected off the cladding, meaning it can travel great distances. This is called total internal reflection as none of the light is absorbed by the cladding so it can basically keep going on and on and on and on and on...

However, the light signal does degrade due to the glass never being 100% pure and reflective, and this is why high quality fiber-optic cables can transmit data longer distances without "losing quality/information". The higher quality the fiber the purer the glass in short.

How the information gets from A to B...

Three stages... Three different jobs... One at the start... Several in the Middle... One at the end.

1. Transmitter - This produces the light signal by encoding it from the information provided and beaming it along the cable(example - makes video collected from camera at the end of the optical fiber into an encoded light signal).
2. Optical Re-generators - As I mentioned before, the light signal degrades (especially over long distances). These are situated at intervals along the fibers and just give the signal a boost every now and again to keep it strong.
3. Optical Receiver - This is what translates the message back into the form the user/machine at the other end wants (example - video from the camera at the other end of the optical fiber).

What really is so great about fiber optics?

• Cheap - Lots of these cables can be made more cheaply than copper wires, for example transmitting electrical signals
• Thin - They are obviously very small and lightweight making their uses very versatile and open-ended (for example - there could be more data being sent at the same time in the same bundle of wire)
• Better quality - The signal degrades less and the data being received is of a higher quality
• Non-flammable - They don't catch fire. Pretty self-explanatory advantage.
• Low power - They take up much less energy. Hooray! :D

I thought you might like to watch a VIDEO of how fiber-optic cables were made so...

So I hope you understand fiber optics more now. I'm open to complete criticism or questions in the comments. Remember, no-one is perfect and therefore I have DEFINITELY made a mistake in this post. See you next time.