Optic fiber is a thin, cylindrical fiber made of glass or plastic, as tiny as one tenth of the human hair. The standard optical fiber in telecom is made up of three layers of cylindrical shape, arranged from the inside out the fiber core (diameter 8~10um) and the cladding (diameter 125um) along with buffer coating (diameter 900um).
Fiber core and cladding are made of glass or silica. Fiber Core and layers of cladding combine to contain the light inside the core without losing. Fiber buffer coating is created of plastic or acrylic and gives handling flexibility and physical protection for the fiber.
Optic fibers make use of an optical phenomenon known as total internal reflection. When light is introduced into the fiber from its end face, it is confined inside the core not leaking out and losing energy.
Then, light is digitally modulated to represent the numbers 1 and 0 like a computer, and information can be transferred from one location to another one, which could 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 exactly is a fiber optic connector and what’s its function in the fiber optic telecommunications network?
In simple terms The fiber optic connector’s function is similar to an electric power supply, it relies on light to transmit from one segment of optical fiber to another section of optical fiber.
Since optical fibers are so tiny that fiber optic connectors need to be constructed with high precision, and at a scale of 0.1um which is one hundredth of a human hair.
Fiber optic connectors align two fibers from end to end in a way that light can travel from one fiber into another without being bounced off of the interface and loss its signal.
Besides the fact that fiber optic connectors offer cross-connect flexibility to the telecommunication network. Therefore, a computer network that is complex could be made modular and manageable.
Similar to other connectors used in electric industry, electronic industry and computer industry, many different types connected to fiber optic cables were created along the development of fiber optic communication. Some of them once were very popular in the industry but have now served their purpose and are becoming obsolete.
The most widely used fiber optic connectors used nowadays include SC, ST, LC, Komenukakousoyoku.com/blog/?wptouch_switch=desktop&redirect=https://www.adsleema.com/2022/10/blog-post_28.html FC, MTRJ, SMA and a few of other less popular ones. You will surely see new connectors developed with the development of the industry.