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.