What are Cladding Losses?
Two separate glass types and qualities are used to manufacture fiber. Core glass is designed to transmit light, while the cladding glass, made to have a different refractive index, is designed to keep the light ray from leaving the fiber once it enters. Cladding glass is not designed to transmit light, so it has a very high attenuation rate. Cladding glass makes up about 15-17% of the total cross sectional area of a fiber. Very few industrial fiber optic applications use a single fiber. Most customers require a component made from a “Bundle” of fibers in a specific configuration. This bundle also has characteristics which contribute to losses. What are bundle losses? As glass fibers are actually cylinders, when they are grouped together to form a bundle, a space is created between cylinders. Known as interstitial spacing, this wasted area accounts for 9-11% of the total bundle area. Therefore, a perfectly constructed fiber bundle (no skew, perfectly packed and polished) starts with a t
