Computing the Fiber Optics Delay per Foot

‘Caveat Emptor’ or ‘let the buyers beware’, this quality control maxim also rules the production of fiber optics, or more aptly the optical fiber. The power of light is not finite, so to achieve the maximum travel of light through an optical fiber, the manufacturing of an optical fiber have strict guidelines on regulating a material’s index of refraction, or what should be understood as the fiber optics delay per foot.

The fiber optics delay per foot is particularly determined by the fiber optics core’s index of refraction and the cladding’s index of refraction. Of these two materials is where quality of the material is best judged.

The Notion behind the Delay

Now you may ask: how light can be delayed when it doesn’t have a discernible matter. Though the nature of light is one of the biggest and most withstanding issues of modern physics, all experts would agree that light is a radiation that often passes onto a wavelength that is visible to the eye, and since recent scientific experiments have shown that light can be warped by use of electromagnetic influence, it is almost assuredly electromagnetic itself. So that makes light (like radiation) and energy, and true to the rules of energy, its power is finite, it can be dispersed, scattered, absorbed, or reproduced.

If light were to travel on a medium like fiber optics, barring dispersion or scattering by impurities, the light having finite power will slowly lose intensity and therefore fade away due to absorption as it will slowly loss intensity. That is because light will be slowed by its passage through the fiber medium until at a point the intensity will reach null and dies out. That’s why manufacturers always ensure that fiber optics material are free from dirt and impurities.

Refraction as the Source of Delay

Light can travel the fastest if in a vacuum, which is a 186 x 10-3 meter per second. Practical applications however, can’t be as perfect. That’s why the light speed in a vacuum is suited for benchmarking data.

The Index of Refraction Formula is computed as such:

n = c ÷ v

Where n is the Index of Refraction, c is the constant 186,282.397 miles per second or 186 x 10-3 miles per second –the speed of the light achievable under optimal circumstances, and v is the speed of light traveling within a medium, fiber optics time delay. So therefore we can obtain the formula where we can compute for the fiber optics delay per foot:

v = c ÷ n

The formula of velocity is also useful to obtain the fiber optics delay per foot data. By dividing the speed of light over the time it takes for the light to reach a point, you can deduce the fiber optics delay per foot.

v = s ÷ t

Where:
Velocity equals the speed (of light) divided against the time it takes for the light to reach a point

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