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FIBER OPTICS

Fiber optics technology that using in optical fiber are long glass-like flexible strands seem like a diameter of human hair. With the use of fiber optics, large amount of data can be transmitted over long distances. The fiber optics are also used to broadcast light signals and audio signals, producing distortion-free sound. Fiber optics is useful in medical procedures (internal inspection of the body), automobiles, and aircraft.

Though fiber optics was first invented in the 1930s, the use of this technology barely started in the late 1960s. A serious momentum occurred in the 1980s when the phone companies started to replace their long distance copper cables with fiber cable. Gradually, all transmission systems and networks started using fiber cables.

A fiber optics relay system contains a transmitter, regenerator, and receiver. Optical transmitter produces and encodes the signals, fiber optics transmits the signals over a distance, and Optics regenerator boost the signal for long distances and optical receiver receives and decodes the signals.

Fiber Optics is generally arranged in bundles known as optical cables. Each bundle is protected by a jacket, the cable's outer covering. A single optical fiber consists of core (the central part where the light travels), cladding (special additives surrounding the core), and buffer coating (plastic coating that guards the fiber from break and moisture). The cladding has a high index of refraction so that the light is internally reflected and zigzags through the fiber instead of leaking out. This principal is called total internal reflection so the light wave can travel great distance.

Fibers optics is divided into two types, single-mode fibers and multi-mode fibers. Single-mode fibers consist small cores (around 3.5 x 10-4 inches or 9 microns in diameter) broadcast infrared laser light whose wavelength 1,300 to 1,550nm. Multi-mode fibers have larger cores (2.5 x 10-3 inches or 62.5 microns in diameter), transmitting infrared light whose wavelength ranges from 850 to 1,300nm from LEDs. The few fiber optics, which are made from plastic having a large core (0.04 inches or 1 mm diameter) send visible red light of wavelength 650 nm from LEDs.

Compared to the copper wires, fiber optics are less expensive, thinner, have higher carrying capacity, less signal degradation, carrying digital signals. and are non-flammable, lightweight, and flexible. Since signals degrade less, lower-power transmitters are used instead of the high-voltage electrical transmitters required for copper wires. The signal coming out of a fiber optics wire possesses the same quality and intensity as when it was first entered into the cable. Fiber optics cable is resistant to electromagnetic interference, as well as to crosstalk from adjoining wires.