Fiber Optics by Amber Soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw 02PHY en-us 2017-04-02 20:55:03 UTC 2025-11-14 06:52:35 UTC hello@padlet.com Structure of Fiber Optics amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164196936
- Basic structure of an optical fiber. The cladding layer is made of a dielectric material with an index of refraction n2. The index of refraction of the cladding material is less than that of the core material. The cladding is generally made of glass or plastic.
]]> 2017-04-02 21:11:45 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164196936 Materials amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164197535 Glass optical fibers are almost always made from silica, but some other materials, such as fluorozirconate, fluoroaluminate, and chalcogenide glasses as well as crystalline materials like sapphire, are used for longer-wavelength infrared or other specialized applications. Silica and fluoride glasses usually have refractive indices of about 1.5, but some materials such as the chalcogenides can have indices as high as 3. Typically the index difference between core and cladding is less than one percent.
Plastic optical fibers (POF) are commonly step-index multi-mode fibers with a core diameter of 0.5 millimeters or larger. POF typically have higher attenuation coefficients than glass fibers, 1 dB/m or higher, and this high attenuation limits the range of POF-based systems.

]]> 2017-04-02 21:19:04 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164197535 What are Fiber Optics amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164197991 We're used to the idea of information traveling in different ways. When we speak into a landline telephone, a wire cable carries the sounds from our voice into a socket in the wall, where another cable takes it to the local telephone exchange. Cellphones work a different way: they send and receive information using invisible radio waves—a technology called wireless because it uses no cables. Fiber optics works a third way. It sends information coded in a beam of light down a glass or plastic pipe. It was originally developed for endoscopes in the 1950s to help doctors see inside the human body without having to cut it open first. In the 1960s, engineers found a way of using the same technology to transmit telephone calls at the speed of light (normally that's 186,000 miles or 300,000 km per second in a vacuum, but slows to about two thirds this speed in a fiber-optic cable).

]]> 2017-04-02 21:26:33 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164197991 How Fiber-Optics Works amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164198785 .

Light travels down a fiber-optic cable by bouncing repeatedly off the walls. Each tiny photon (particle of light) bounces down the pipe like a bobsleigh going down an ice run. Now you might expect a beam of light, traveling in a clear glass pipe, simply to leak out of the edges. But if light hits glass at a really shallow angle (less than 42 degrees), it reflects back in again—as though the glass were really a mirror. This phenomenon is called total internal reflection. It's one of the things that keeps light inside the pipe.

Artwork: Right: Total internal reflection keeps light rays bouncing down the inside of a fiber-optic cable.

The other thing that keeps light in the pipe is the structure of the cable, which is made up of two separate parts. The main part of the cable—in the middle—is called the core and that's the bit the light travels through. Wrapped around the outside of the core is another layer of glass called the cladding. The cladding's job is to keep the light signals inside the core. It can do this because it is made of a different type of glass to the core. (More technically, the cladding has a lower refractive index.)

]]> 2017-04-02 21:37:42 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/164198785 amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/165577576 The light in a fiber-optic cable travels through the core (hallway) by constantly bouncing from the cladding (mirror-lined walls), a principle called total internal reflection. Because the cladding does not absorb any light from the core, the light wave can travel great distances.The core is the inner part of the fiber, which guides light. The cladding surrounds the core completely. The refractive index of the core has to be higher than that of the cladding, so light in the core that strikes the boundary with the cladding at an angle shallower than critical angle will be reflected back into the core by total internal reflection.]]> 2017-04-09 21:29:51 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/165577576 Total Internal Reflection amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/166326869 When a ray passes from denser medium (medium with higher refractive index) to rarer medium it bends or refracts away from the imaginary line, called normal, perpendicular to the surface. As the angle of incidence in denser medium becomes greater with respect to normal, the refracted ray bends further away from it. At one particular angle, called critical angle, the refracted light does not enter rarer medium but instead travels along the surface between the two media. If the ray is incident at greater than critical angle, then the refracted ray reflects back into the denser medium resulting into total internal reflection. Thus, we can define total internal reflection as an optical phenomenon that happens when a ray of light strikes a medium boundary at an angle larger than a particular critical angle with respect to the normal to the surface.]]> 2017-04-13 20:42:24 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/166326869 Conditions Total Internal reflection amber_soh https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/166327006
  • Angle of incidence (i) should be greater than critical angle (ic).
  • Ray should travel from denser medium to rarer medium.
    • Total internal reflection will not take place unless the incident light is traveling within the more optically dense medium towards the less optically dense medium. TIR will happen for light traveling from water towards air, but it will not happen for light traveling from air towards water. TIR would happen for light traveling from water towards air, but it will not happen for light traveling from water (n=1.333) towards crown glass (n=1.52). TIR occurs because the angle of refraction reaches a 90-degree angle before the angle of incidence reaches a 90-degree angle. The only way for the angle of refraction to be greater than the angle of incidence is for light to bend away from the normal. Since light only bends away from the normal when passing from a more dense medium into a less dense medium, then this would be a necessary condition for total internal reflection.
    ]]>     2017-04-13 20:43:45 UTC https://padlet.com/amber_soh/5kfkhnw8xijw/wish/166327006