Optics, Lasers & Photonics

Optical Fiber

An optical fiber is a flexible as well as transparent fiber made by silica glass or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used mostly to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and widely used in fiber-optic communications, unlike cable wires optical fiber permits transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than wire cables. Instead of metal wires fibers are used because signals travel along them with lesser amounts of loss; in addition to this fiber are also safe to electromagnetic interference, a problem to which metal wires suffer excessively. Specially designed fibers are also used for a various other application, some of them being fiber lasers and fiber optic sensors.