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How Optical Fiber Works

Have you ever thought about how you get emails or the other information from any corner of the planet within a blink of an eye? This has been made possible by a network of cables which are laid under the ground and below the ocean. The cables which carry most of the world's data are glass fiber cables. they're also utilized in medical equipment. 



      Let's find out how glass fiber cables work and the way they need revolutionized the world around us. the glass fiber cable is made from thousands of fiber strands. And one fiber strand as thin as a person's hair. Optical fibers carry information in the shape of sunshine. Let's first learn some fundamental behaviors of sunshine to know the workings of optical fibers. The speed of sunshine changes when it passes through a medium. And this alteration in speed is expressed by the index of refraction. This variation and therefore the speed of the sunshine results in another interesting phenomenon. Refraction, to know what it's, allows us to perform an interesting experiment. during this experiment, light passes through a prism. you'll see that at the interface the sunshine gets bent instead of going straight. 

      This phenomenon is understood as refraction. Refraction occurs when light passes from a medium with a 1 index of refraction to at least one with another index of refraction. the sunshine bends towards the interface when it goes from a medium of high to at least one of low refractive indices. Refraction is the reason why a pencil looks bent during a glass of water. this easy refraction technique is effectively utilized in optical fibers. Now, let's take this experiment a hypothetical one. Using some dopants we are ready to increase the index of refraction of the glass in real-time. As we increase the index of refraction, the sunshine will bend more and more towards the surface. After a time you'll see that the sunshine will pass through the surface of the glass. If we increase the refractive index further, the sunshine will suddenly come back to the primary medium as a pure reflection. this is often called total internal reflection. the entire internal reflection is feasible if we increase the incident angle instead of increasing the index of refraction. during this case at a particular angle called the angle of incidence, the sunshine will come back to the primary medium. This phenomenon of total internal reflection is employed in optical fiber cables to transmit the sunshine. the only sort of optical fiber cable is shown here. 

      Cylindrical glass with a high index of refraction. If the laser strikes the interface at an angle greater than the angle of incidence, the total internal reflection will happen and therefore the light will reach the opposite end. this suggests that light is often confined within the glass fiber over an extended distance. regardless of what complex shape the fiber forms. Remember, total internal reflection happens between the high index of refraction glass and therefore the low index of refraction air. However, optical fibers need a protective coating. A protective coating isn't possible with this configuration. The introduction of protective material will replace the position of the air and cease the entire internal reflection phenomenon. a simple thanks to overcoming this issue is to introduce a low refractive index glass above the core glass referred to as cladding. this manner total internal reflection will happen and we'll be able to use a protective layer. Both the core and therefore the cladding use silica as their base material. The difference within the index of refraction is often achieved by adding different sorts of dopants. The glass fiber we've just constructed won't be ready to carry signals for quite 100 kilometers. this is often thanks to various losses that happen within the cable. This loss of signal strength is usually called attenuation. Absorption and scattering are the most reasons for signal attenuation. this is often why you see amplifiers and cables after a particular distance. They boost the signal strength and permit signals to be transmitted over an extended distance. the facility required for the amplifier is drawn from nearby sources. Now, back to the most topic, how does the optical fiber transmit information like phone calls or internet signals? Any information is often represented within the sort of zeros and ones. 

      Assume you would like to send a hello text message through your mobile. First this word are going to be converted into the same code as a sequence of zeros and ones. After the conversion yourmobile phone will transmit these zeros and ones in theform of electromagnetic waves. One is transmitted as a high frequency and 0 as low frequency wave. Your local cell tower picks upthese electromagnetic waves. At the tower, if the electromagnetic radiation is of high frequency, alight pulse is generated. Otherwise, no pulse is generated. Now these light pulsescan easily be transmitted through glass fiber cables. the sunshine pulses whichcarry the knowledge need to travel through acomplicated network of cables to succeed in their destination. For this purpose, theentire globe is roofed with glass fiber cables. These cables are laid underthe ground and below the ocean. it's mainly the mobile service providers that maintain these underground cables. AT&T, Orange and Verizon aresome of the few global players who own and maintain thesubmarine cable network. an in depth cross sectionview of an undersea cable is shown here. you'll see that only asmall portion of the cable is employed for holding the glass fiber . The remaining area of thecable may be a mechanical structure for cover and strength. Now the question is, wheredoes the amplifier get power from under these deep oceans? Well, for this a skinny coppershell is employed inside the cable. Which carries electricpower along the cable in order that the amplifiers are often powered. This whole discussion simply means if glass fiber cables don't reach a neighborhood of the world , that part will beisolated from the web or mobile communications. If we compare glass fiber cable to traditional copper cable,the glass fiber cable is superior in almost every way. 

      Fiber optic cablesprovide larger bandwidth and transmit data at much higherspeeds than copper cables. this is often because the speed of sunshine is usually greater thanthe speed of electrons. The flow of electrons during a copper cable generates a magnetic fieldeven outside of the cable which will causeelectromagnetic interference. On the opposite hand, the sunshine which travels through the opticalcable is usually confined within the fiber. Thus the prospect of interactionwith an external signal doesn't exist. another interesting featureabout glass fiber cables is that any light signalwhich enters from the side features a minimal chance oftraveling along the cable. Thus the glass fiber cablesprovide high data security. you would possibly be amazed toknow that glass fiber was first utilized in endoscopy even before it had been used inthe telecommunications field. In telecommunications,digital pulses are transferred through the glass fiber cable. However, in endoscopic cables, visual signals whichare on the analog form are transmitted to the opposite end. 

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