Archived — Fiber Optic Cable

Jacketed optical fibers are color coded according to fiber type. Color coding enables technicians to quickly determine whether a particular cable is multimode (e.g. orange or aqua) or single mode (e.g. yellow or blue). The jacket imprint provides additional information, such as fiber size, fire code rating, and so forth. Be aware that the colors of some jacketed fiber varies from this standard. Also note that bare fibers within buffer tubes are color coded differently than jacketed fiber. The chart below pertains only to jacketed fiber. Fiber Optic Color Codes by Fiber Type FIBER COLOR CODE Non-Millitary Applications Millitary Applications

>> What is Birefringence in Optical Fiber? The analysis of the guiding properties of single mode fibers leads to the propagation of one transversal mode called LP01, or, more precisely, two orthogonal degenerate modes LP01x and LP01y. The term degenerate means that both modes are characterized by the same propagation constant, i.e. the same effective refractive index (nx = ny). However, this degeneracy is theoretical: nx = ny holds only for an optical fiber with a perfect circular symmetry which can never be obtained in practice. The core is indeed always slightly elliptical rather than circular. Moreover, the dopant concentration

>> Transmission Performance Specification for Fiber Optic Cable Based on ANSI/TIA 568 (C.0, C.2, C.3) Standard Optical Fiber and Cable Type Wavelength (nm) Maximum Attenuation (dB/km) Minimum Overfilled Modal Bandwidth (MHz*km) Minimum Effective Modal Bandwidth (MHz*km) 62.5/125um Multimode (OM1) 850 3.5 200 Not Required 1300 1.5 500 Not Required 50/125um Multimode (OM2) 850 3.5 200 Not Required 1300 1.5 500 Not Required 850nm Laser Optimized 50/125um Multimode (OM3) 850 3.5 1,500 2,000 1300 1.5 500 Not Required Single Mode Indoor/Outdoor (OS1/OS2) 1310 0.05 N/A N/A 1550 0.05 N/A N/A Single Mode Indoor (OS1/OS2) 1310 1.00 N/A N/A 1550 1.00 N/A

>> A Brief Introduction of Rare-Earth Doped Fibers Rare-earth doped fiber is an optical fiber in which ions of a rare-earth element, such as neodymium, Erbium or holmium, have been incorporated into the glass core matrix, yielding high absorption with low loss in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions. Fiber lasers and fiber amplifiers are nearly always based on glass fibers which are doped with laser-active rare earth ions (normally only in the fiber core). These ions absorb pump light, typically at a shorter wavelength than the laser or amplifier wavelength (except in upconversion lasers), which excites them into some

>> The Background In recent years there has been a lot of work on dispersion-compensating fibers (DCFs), which are being used extensively for upgrading the installed 1310nm optimized optical fiber links for operation at 1550nm. In the following two sections, we will discuss the basic principle behind dispersion compensation, and the characteristics of dispersion compensating fibers (DCFs).   >> What is Dispersion Compensation Let’s look at a pulse (with spectral width of Δλ0) which is propagating through a fiber characterized by the propagation constant β. The spectral width Δλ0 could be due to either the finite spectral width of the