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Understanding Fiber Optics (in Plain English)
It’s no doubt that fiber optics is the most current strides of human
technology. Its advent allowed so much to happen.
In brief:
The world of medicine, fiber optics allowed endoscopy to happen, and
had proved invaluable as exploratory, invasive and surgical
procedures becomes more minute; critical observation on hard to
reach working areas of industrial machines is now possible by use of
fiberscope or borescope and engineers can monitor how engines
function in real time; in quantum mechanics, fiber optics can be
manipulated as a gain medium in stimulated emission processes such
as LASER; another wide application of fiber optics is in acoustics
and sonar navigation, measuring strain, temperature, and tensile
forces.
The widest use of fiber optics and the most visible is in
telecommunications, and it is undoubtedly the harbinger of the
Information Age, an age where information moves faster than physical
movement, applying circa 1980s onwards. Also the age where Microsoft
and Google rise to world prominence and Intangible Economy or
Technocapitalism are the world’s primary economic activity and the
competitive advantage relies on how information is transmitted
through fiber optics.
Yet understanding fiber optics and the applied science principle is
rather easy. In fact the concept of periscopes resemble closely to
that of refraction, an element that is extremely important in fiber
optics (though of course periscope doesn’t employ refraction index
in its elements).
Understanding Fiber Optics
Fiber optics is a branch of applied science that deals specifically
with optical fibers. These optical fibers are either made of plastic
or glass, but with materials that are strictly regulated to meet a
standard in refraction index. Refraction Index is the phase velocity
in which light can travel along the fiber. For simpler comparisons,
it’s the reflecting ability of a material, such that mirrors do tend
to reflect light easier than, say, rubber. Check this picture of a
fiber optic bundle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fiber_optic_bundle.jpg
Take note that the bundle of optical fibers shown do not give off
light, rather, light had traveled along its length, thus
illuminating the entire structure. So you see, as light (or data) is
introduced onto one end of the fiber optic cable, light is then
transmitted to its entire length, others dispelling to the sides
(thus the illumination) and losing intensity (attenuation). But what
happens if it is wrapped in a layer that has lower refractive index
that light cannot pass through, such as rubber? All of the light
will be reflected back and confined within the fiber optic cable.
Over long distances, optical fibers like these have the capability
to transmit data (as light) in a process called Total Internal
Reflection.
That makes the purest glass (least impurities equate to higher
refractive index.) and the lowest refractive cladding the optimum
materials for optical fiber.
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