About Fiber Optics
Fiber optics is the field that relates to the study and application of optical fiber technology. Such fiber optics applications are used in a broad number of technologies, and the future roles that fiber optics can fulfill seem almost limitless.
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Invented
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It's hard to say exactly when modernized fiber optics came into being and who was their true inventor. What is known, for sure, is that the first demonstration of the guided refraction of light was performed by Jacques Babinet and Daniel Colladon in the 1840's. This demonstration provided the groundwork on which all later principles of fiber optics would be built.
Evolution
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From the earliest history of fiber optics as the principle of guiding light via refraction, the technology has evolved immensely. By the 1950's scientists had developed optical fibers that closely resemble modern ones, and in the years that have followed the technology of fiber optics has grown at an ever faster pace. The applications for fiber optics have yet to truly catch up to the technology's explosive evolutionary growth but this is an area that is being exploited more fully in recent years.
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Function
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Optical fibers are intended to direct light waves in one direction via processes of light refraction. Essentially, fiber optic cables transmit light waves from one physical point to another by capturing the light inside the cable and reflecting it back inside every time it attempts to escape. This makes fiber optic cable sort of like a prism from which the light waves cannot escape. The only place for the light waves to go, then, is to the other end of the fiber optic cable.
Type
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There are really only two major types of fiber optic cables in existence, those made of glass and those made of plastic. Glass fibers are more common because they permit longer-distance transmission and tend to be more efficient. Plastic optical fibers are popular in less technical applications and in extremely short-length ones.
Benefits
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The benefits of fiber optic technology are only really beginning to be exploited by society and to be understood by the scientific and business communities. The most useful application, from a societal standpoint, appears to be the extreme usefulness of fiber optics within long-distance communication networks. Traditional means of conveying communications through other forms of cable, such as coaxial cable and old telephone lines, was extremely inefficient and limited in terms of bandwidth. Fiber optics can carry a much larger bandwidth through a much smaller cable and they aren't prone to the loss of information that traditional methods of communication signal-delivery are.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Wikimedia Commons
