Optic fiber is a thin cylindrical fiber made from glass or plastic, as tiny as one tenth of the human hair. A standard telecom optical fiber is made up of three cylindrical layers, counted in the inside as fiber core (diameter 810um), Www.thekarups.com/cgi-bin/atx/out.cgi?id=573&tag=top&trade=http://a7babi.com/showthread.php?t=24464 cladding (diameter 130um) along with buffer coating (diameter 900um).
The fiber core and cladding are made of glass or silica. The fiber core and the Cladding layers are used to keep the light within the core, without leaking. The fiber buffer coating is constructed from acrylic or plastic and offers handling flexibility as well as physical protection to the fiber.
Optical fibers utilize an optical phenomenon called total internal reflection. When light is injected into the fiber from one end, it’s confined inside the core without spilling out and losing energy.
Then, light is digitally modified to indicate 1 and 0 , just like a computer, and information can be carried from one place to another site which may be located from San Francisco all the way to New York.
What are fiber optic connectors ? And how do they function?
You now know how optical fibers work. So what is an optical connector and what is its purpose in the fiber optic telecommunications network?
In simple terms A fiber optic connector’s job is similar to that of an electric power source, it connects light from one section of optical fiber to a different section that is optical.
Because optical fibers are tiny that fiber optic connectors need to be made with high precision, and at a scale of 0.1um which is one hundredth of a human hair.
Fiber optic connectors are positioned to align two fibers end to end so precisely that light can move from one fiber to another without bounce off the connector and losing its signal.
Besides fiber optic connectors, they provide cross-connect flexibility to the telecommunication network. So a complicated computer network can be modularized and easy to manage.
Just like any other connectors that are used in electronic industry, electric industry and computer industry, many different types connected to fiber optic cables were created in the course of development of the fiber optic communication. Some of them once were highly popular in the market but have now served their purposes and are fading away.
The most widely used fiber optic connectors used nowadays include SC, ST, LC, FC, MTRJ, SMA and a few lesser-known ones. You will surely see new connectors being developed as a result of the progress of this industry.