What is Optical Fiber?
Optical fiber, in its many forms, cable configurations and connectorizations, has become the standard building block for advanced communications networks. Essentially, optical fiber functions as a “light pipe,” carrying light generated by lasers and other signal transmission sources to its destination. Glass optical fiber provides high-capacity, economical transmission of voice, data and video signals from short to very long distances. It does this at very high data rates and with very low signal loss. Optical fibers are hair-thin structures created by forming preforms, which are glass rods drawn into fine threads of glass protected by a plastic coating. Fiber manufacturers use various processes to make the preforms, such as Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (invented by Bell Laboratories), Vapor-phase Axial Deposition and Outside Vapor Deposition. The fibers drawn from these preforms are then typically packaged into cable configurations, which are then placed into an operating enviro
Optical fiber is a term for any sort of plastic or glass conduit meant to transport light. The principles behind optical fiber are actually quite old, but in recent years it has become an incredibly important technology, as communications infrastructure has begun to use optical fiber to transmit data at extremely high rates. Aside from fiber optic communications, however, optical fiber has a number of applications in medicine, consumer products, and physics. These sorts of fibers offer a number of advantages over traditional metal wire, the most important being that there is considerably less signal degradation. Additionally, optical fiber is immune to electromagnetic interference, which can seriously impede the transmission of data along normal metal wires. This adds an added security measure, as well, since optical fiber can survive an electromagnetic pulse which would destroy metal cables. The basic principle behind optical fiber is quite simple: the fiber is coated to make it compl
