Aim

To Study the Optical Fibre Cable

Principle and its Applications.

Important Terms
Optical Fiber: -

An optical fiber (or fiber) is a glass or plastic fiber

that carrieslight along its length. Fiber optics is the
overlap of applied science and engineering
concerned with the design and application of
optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in
fiber optic communications, which permits
transmission over longer distances and at higher
bandwidths (data rates) than other forms of
communications.

Refraction:
Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due
to a change in its speed. This is most commonly
observed when a wave
passes from one medium to another. Refraction of
light is the most commonly observed phenomenon,
but any type of wave can refract when it interacts
with a medium, for example when sound waves
pass from one medium into another or when water
waves move into water of a different depth.
Reflection:
Reflection is the change in direction of a wave
front at an interface between two different media
so that the wave front returns into the medium
from which it originated. Common examples
include the reflection of light, sound and water
waves.

Internal Reflection
Scattering:
Scattering is a general physical process where some
forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or moving
particles, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory
by one or more localized non-uniformities in the
medium through which they pass. In conventional use,
this also includes deviation of reflected radiation from
the angle predicted by the law of reflection
Attenuation:
Is the gradual loss in intensity of any kind of flux
through a medium. For instance, sunlight is
attenuated by dark glasses, and X-rays are attenuated
by lead.

Optical Fiber Cable (OFC)

An optical fiber (or fiber) is a glass or plastic fiber that
carries light along its length. Fiber optics is the overlap
of applied science and engineering concerned with the
design and application of optical fibers. Optical fibers
are widely used in fiber-optic communications, which
permits transmission over longer distances and at
higher bandwidths (data rates) than other forms of
communications. Fibers are used instead of metal wires
because signals travel along them with less loss, and
they are also immuneto electromagnetic interference.
Fibers are also used for illumination and are wrapped in
bundles so they can be used to carry images, thus
allowing viewing in tight spaces. Specially designed
fibers are used for a variety of other applications,
including sensors and fiber lasers.
Light is kept in the core of the optical fiber by total
internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a
waveguide. Fibers which support many propagation
paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers
(MMF), while those which can only support a single
mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode
fibers generally have a larger core diameter and are
used for short-distance communication links and for
applications where high power must be transmitted.
Single- mode fibers are used for most communication
links longer than 550 meters (1,800 ft). Joining lengths
of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical
wire or cable.

Applications
o Optical fiber communication
Optical fiber can be used as a medium for
telecommunication and networking because it is
flexible and can be bundled as cables. It is especially
advantageous for long-distance communications,
because light propagates through the fiber with little
attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows
long distances to be spanned with few repeaters.
Additionally, the per-channel light signals propagating
in the fiber can be modulated at rates as high as 111
gigabits per second, although 10 or40 Gb/s is typical in
deployed systems. Each fiber can carry many
independent channels, each using a different wavelength
of light(wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)). The
net data rate (data rate without overhead bytes) 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). The current laboratory fiber optic data rate record,
held by Bell Labs in Villarceaux, France, is multiplexing
155 channels, each carrying 100 Gbps over a 7000 km
fiber.
For short distance applications, such as creating a
network within an office building, fiber-optic cabling
can be used to save space in cable ducts. This is
because a single fiber can often carry much more data
than many electrical cables, such as Cat-5 Ethernet
cabling. Fiber is also immune to electrical
interference; there is no cross-talk between signals in
different cables and no pickup of environmental noise.
Non- armored fiber cables do not conduct electricity,
which makes fiber a good solution for protecting
communications equipment located in high voltage
environments such as power generation facilities, or
metal communication structures prone to lightning
strikes. They can also be used in environments where
explosive fumes are present,
without danger of ignition. Wiretapping is more difficult
compared to electrical connections, and there are
concentric dual core fibers that are said to be tap-proof.
Although fibers can be made out of transparent plastic,
glass, or a combination of the two, the fibers used in
long distance telecommunications applications are
always glass, because of the lower optical attenuation.
Both multi-mode and single-mode fibers are used in
communications, with multi- mode fiber used mostly for
short distances, up to 550 m (600 yards), and single-
mode fiber used for longer distance links.
o Fiber optic sensors
Fibers have many uses in remote sensing. In some
applications, the sensor is itself an optical fiber. In
other cases, fiber is used to connect a non-fiberoptic
sensor to a measurement system. Depending on the
application, fiber may be used because of its small
size, or the fact that no electrical power is needed at
the remote location, or because many sensors can be
multiplexed along the length of a fiber by using
different wavelengths of light for each sensor, or by
sensing the time delay as light passes along the fiber
through each sensor. Time delay can be determined
using a device such as an optical time-domain
reflectometer.
Optical fibers can be used as sensors to measure strain,
temperature, pressure and other quantities by modifying
a fiber so that the quantity to be measured modulates
the intensity, phase, polarization, wavelength or transit
time of light in the fiber. Sensors that vary the intensity
of light are the simplest, since only a simple source and
detector are required. Optical fiber is an intrinsic part
of the light

Principle of Operation
An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide
(non conducting waveguide) that transmits light along
its axis, by the process of total internal reflection. The
fiber core is surrounded by a cladding layer.

o Index of Refraction
The index of refraction is a way of measuring the
speed of light in a material. Light travels fastest in a
vacuum, such as outer space. The actual speed of light
in a vacuum is about 300 million meters (186 thousand
miles) per second. Index of refraction is calculated by
dividing the speed of light in a vacuum by the speed of
light in some other medium. The index of refraction of
a vacuum is therefore 1, by definition.
The typical value for the cladding of an optical fiber is
1.46.
The core value is typically 1.48. The larger the index of
refraction, the slower light travels in that medium. From
this information, a good rule of thumb is that signal using
optical fiber for communication will
travel at around 200 million meters
per second.

o Total Internal Reflection

When light travelling in a dense medium hit a boundary

at a steep angle (larger than the "critical angle" for the
boundary), the light will be completely reflected. This
effect is used in optical fibers to confine light in the
core. Light travels along the fiber bouncing back and
forth of the boundary. Because the light must strike the
boundary with an angle greater than the critical angle,
only light that enters the fiber within a
certain range of angles can travel down the fiber without
leaking out. This range of angles is called the acceptance
cone of the fiber. The size of this acceptance cone is a
function of the refractive index difference between the
fiber's core and cladding.
o Single Mode Fiber
Fiber with a core diameter less than about ten times the
wavelength of the propagating light cannot be modeled
using geometric optics. Instead, it must be analyzed as
an electromagnetic structure, by solution of Maxwell's
equations as reduced to the electromagnetic wave
equation. The electromagnetic analysis may also be
required to understand behaviors such as speckle that
occur when coherent light propagates in multi-mode
fiber.
o Multi-Mode Fiber

The propagation of light through a multi-mode

optical fiber. A laser bouncing down an acrylic rod,
illustrating the total internal reflection of light in a
multi-mode optical fiber.

Mechanisms of Attenuation
Attenuation in fiber optics, also known as
transmission loss, is the reduction in intensity of the
light beam (or signal) with respect to distance
travelled through a transmission medium. Attenuation
coefficients in fiber optics usually use units of dB/km
through the medium due to the relatively high quality
of transparency of modern
optical transmission media. The medium is typically
usually a fiber of silica glass that confines the incident
light beam to the inside.

o Light scattering
The propagation of light through the core of an optical
fiber is based on total internal reflection of the light
wave. Rough and irregular surfaces, even at the
molecular level, can cause light rays to be reflected in
random directions. This is called diffuse reflection or
scattering, and it is typically characterized by wide
variety of reflect ion angles.

Manufacturing Materials: -
Glass optical fibers are almost always made from silica,
but some other materials, such as fluorozirconate,
Fluor aluminate, and chalcogenide glasses, are used
for longer-wavelength infrared applications. Like
other glasses, these glasses have a refractive index of
about 1.5. Typically, the difference between core and
cladding is less than one percent.
Silica: -

Silica exhibits good optical transmission over a wide

range of wavelengths. In the near-infrared (near IR)
portion of the spectrum, particularly around 1.5 μm,
silica can have extremely low absorption and scattering
losses of the order of 0.2dB/km. A high transparency in
the 1.4-μm region is achieved by maintaining a low
concentration of hydroxyl groups (OH).
 Bibliography

Books:
Physics (Part 1&2)–Textbook for Class XII; National Council of
Educational Research and Training

Websites: Image Courtesy:

www.google.com/images

www.wikipedia.org

Source and other Information: www.google.com

www.icbse.com www.wikipedia.org