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If you’re new to fiber or just brushing up before your next project bid, here are some common fiber optic basics.

What is Optical Fiber?
Fiber is made up of a core surrounded by a cladding layer. Both are glass but each has its own index of refraction.

Basic Types of Optical Fiber
In use today are two general types of optical fiber.

• Singlemode (SM) fiber is designed for use with a signal of one wavelength of light, typically at invisible 1310, 1480, 1550 or 1625nm wavelengths. Most often with a core diameter of 250µ (micron), singlemode fiber is commonly used for long distance regional or inter-city transmissions of data.
  
  
• Multimode (MM) fiber is based on the ability to combine different wavelength signals in the same fiber path, typically at invisible 850 or 1300nm wavelengths. Most often with a core diameter of 900µ (micron), multimode fiber is commonly used for short distance curb to house, or patch cable transmissions of data.

Fiber vs. the Twisted Pair
Used for the greater part of the last century, the “twisted pair” is a twisted thin gauge copper wire pair that only allows a single analog data connection. Today, twisted pairs are used in everything ranging from telephone wires to computer networking cables.

Twisted pairs rely on the use of hardware switching equipment to combine mass amounts of data to be carried over distances, and can be susceptible to interference and/or security concerns.

Revolutionizing the telecommunications industry,

1. Two cleaved and cleaned
fibers are core aligned between
two fusion electrodes.

optical fiber strands transmit digital (binary) data at the speed of light. This throughput allows each individual fiber to transmit an incredible amount of data, for example tens-of-thousands of telephone calls. As an added bonus, optical fiber strands are very secure and immune to radio frequency interference.

However, unlike the twisted pair, to connect two separate fiber strands you cannot just simply twist them together. A mechanical or fusion splicer must be used to align the fiber cores in order to continue the transfer of data.

2. The two fusion electrodes emit
a precision arc of electricity to melt and fuse the two fiber ends together.

Splicing methods

Because fiber is glass, you cannot simply tie two optical fiber ends in a knot. There are two methods to properly “splice” two fiber ends together.

• Mechanically - Two finely polished fiber ends are mated in a mechanical device with a small amount of index matching gel. The aligning of cores is very important (mismatches increase fiber loss).

• Fusion - melting of the 2 fiber ends into one solid glass fiber ensuring core alignment and minimal loss.

3. Within seconds the two fiber
ends are fused together resulting
in a continuous fiber strand.

Common Optical Connectors

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