What Is Fiber Optics?

Step aside metal wires, because here comes fiber optics. Yes, fiber optics are making waves in the telecommunication and computer industries. They are challenging the presence and the utility of metal wires as far as data transfer and reception is concerned. It is predicted that in the coming years almost everything in the telecommunication industry will use fiber optics. It will surely make the use of copper wires obsolete in due time.

But what is fiber optics? Fiber optics is a thin strand of fiber as thin as your hair, made of glass, which you can see clearly, as the name optical fibers imply. These strands are bundled and covered with coating material to make it into a cable. The cables we see in our telephone and computers are made of fiber optics. Fiber optics transfers data from one point to the other through light waves, unlike your metal wires, which transfer data using electric waves. These light waves pass through the core of the fiber optics, which by refracting from one focal point to another. Once the light wave reaches the other endpoint the data is then decoded. Data carried through a fiber optic can travel over long distances.

What is fiber optics? Imagine the telephone game you played when you were a kid. You have those two pieces of tin cans or cups where you put hole at the bottom on each cup or can. You connect them with a string or a thread. Once this is done you stretch the string to opposite direction in a straight line and play telephone game. It is a wonder how the message can travel, but once the string is bent the message can no longer reach to the other end.

In the case of fiber optics, even if those tiny strands of glasses are bent, light can still travel through the internal refraction system. The data that is being relayed can still reach to the receiving end. The internal refraction system in fiber optics works in a way that the light travels by bending from one point to the other somewhat forming a zigzag line inside the fiber.

What is fiber optics? Fiber optics is composed of three layers of glass material. The core, which is the innermost portion of the fiber, is where the light passes through. The cladding, which is the second layer, does not absorb the light in the fiber allowing it to reflect to the core. The buffer coating is the covering material made of plastic to prevent the moisture from damaging the fiber.

What is fiber optics? Fiber optics is lighter than metal wires or cables, and even if it is bent, data transfer is not affected. No wonder why more and more industries are attracted to the benefit of fiber optics.

Even the medical world is now using gadgets that are equipped with fiber optics. Did you see those laparoscopes and endoscopes you see in hospital laboratories? Those are made of fiber optics.

Fiber optics is continuously making wonders in every human activity. It has made life easier. So, what is fiber optics? At least now you know.