In 1790s, 1st time ever, light was used to transmit a signal. Very first “Optical Telegraph” was invented in 1790s by French Chappe Brothers. First Public experiment of air telegraph was carried out by Chappe brothers on March 3, 1791, on a distance of 14km. The system of this optical telegraph was comprised of a series of lights mounted on towers. On each tower, Operators were used to relay the received message from one tower to other tower.
1880, William Wheeler brought out a system of Lighting Pipes. His idea was, Basically, to transmit beam of light from one end of a pipe to another end while reflecting this beam inside the pipe with a highly reflective (coating) surface.
In the same year, 1880, Graham bell invented a “photophone”. This photophone was capable of transmitting a voice signal on the beam of light.
Then with the pessage of time, this technology got attention of everyone and today we a system of Fiber Rods which is used to transmit light beams from one end to another, and it is capable to transmit these signals on long distances with minimum loss in intensity, wavelength and other properties. This system of Fiber Rods is called “Fiber Optics” or “Optical Fiber”.
Now, this optical fiber is being used in a very broad range of applications, such as transmitting or simply transporting light beams from one end to other, transmitting optically encoded data and voice etc.
The main objective of fiber optics is to carry out light beams from one end to another, or in other words, keep the light guided over longer propagation distances. These beams can even be bended when you are using fiber optics.
Structure:
Basic structre of fiber optics include one PVC Jacket, Aramid Strength Member, Thermoplastic Overcoating or Buffer, Fiber Coating and Glass Fiber. Types by Structure:
Single Mode Cable:
Single mode of fiber is the one whose diameter is 8.3 to 10 microns and only one mode of transmission. Single mode fiber is capable of carry higher bandwidth than a multimode fiber with a condition of light source of narrow spectral width. Another famous name of this fiber is Uni-Mode Fiber.
When you are using WDM Technology, mostly you will be looking for uni-mode fiber and it can support data transmission of multi-frequency.
Multi Mode Fiber:
Diameter of Multi-Mode fiber is 50 to 100 microns. WDM is not commonly used in Multi-Mode Fiber. Typical transmission speed of multi-mode fiber is 100 Mbps up to 2 km, 1 Gbps up to 500–600 meters and 10 Gbps up to 300 meters.
Diameter of Multi-Mode fiber is 50 to 100 microns. WDM is not commonly used in Multi-Mode Fiber. Typical transmission speed of multi-mode fiber is 100 Mbps up to 2 km, 1 Gbps up to 500–600 meters and 10 Gbps up to 300 meters. Plastic Optical Fiber:
POF are large in diameter. Core of this type of fiber is made up of acrylic, which is a very clear plastic which resembles to glass. Main features of this type of fiber are Large in Core Size and Low Cost. POF can support very high bandwidth due to large core size.
There are some internal types of Cladding which I’ll discuss in some other article.
