Fiber Optics
Assignment
August 3, 2007
Dictionary:Fiber
–noun | 1. | a fine, threadlike piece, as of cotton, jute, or asbestos. |
| 2. | a slender filament: a fiber of platinum. |
| 3. | filaments collectively. |
| 4. | matter or material composed of filaments: a plastic fiber. |
| 5. | something resembling a filament. |
| 6. | an essential character, quality, or strength: people of strong moral fiber. |
| 7. | Botany. | a. | filamentous matter from the bast tissue or other parts of plants, used for industrial purposes. |
| b. | a slender, threadlike root of a plant. |
| c. | a slender, tapered cell which, with like cells, serves to strengthen tissue. |
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| 8. | Anatomy, Zoology. a slender, threadlike element or cell, as of nerve, muscle, or connective tissue. |
| 9. | Nutrition. Also called bulk, dietary fiber. | a. | the structural part of plants and plant products that consists of carbohydrates, as cellulose and pectin, that are wholly or partially indigestible and when eaten stimulate peristalsis in the intestine. |
| b. | food containing a high amount of such carbohydrates, as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. |
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Optics
–noun (used with a singular verb
) the branch of physical science that deals with the properties and phenomena of both visible and invisible light and with vision.
adj. - Of or relating to the eye or vision.
- Of or relating to the science of optics or optical equipment.
n. - An eye.
- Any of the lenses, prisms, or mirrors of an optical instrument.
[combine them together...] An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length by confining as much light as possible in a propagating form. In fibers with large core diameter, the confinement is based on total internal reflection. In smaller diameter core fibers, (widely used for most communication links longer than 200 meters) the confinement relies on establishing a waveguide. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with such optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher data rates than other forms of wired and wireless communications. They are also used to form sensors, and in a variety of other applications.
The term optical fiber covers a range of different designs including graded-index optical fibers, step-index optical fibers, birefringent polarization-maintaining fibers and more recently photonic crystal fibers, with the design and the wavelength of the light propagating in the fiber dictating whether or not it will be multi-mode optical fiber or single-mode optical fiber. Because of the mechanical properties of the more common glass optical fibers, special methods of splicing fibers and of connecting them to other equipment are needed. Manufacture of optical fibers is based on partially melting a chemically doped preform and pulling the flowing material on a draw tower. Fibers are built into different kinds of cables depending on how they will be used.
~ hope you learned something [then you can teach me...joke]:] (^_~) [:
