How Do Fiber Optic Connectors work? The history of fiber optic telecommunications deserves an entire book on its own as it took a number of generations to reach the state of the art present.

Optical fiber is a long thin, cylindrical fiber made of plastic or glass, smaller than one tenth of human hair. The standard optical fiber in telecom comprises three cylindrical layers, counted from the inside out as fiber core (diameter 8~10um), cladding (diameter of 125um) along with buffer coating (diameter 90um).

Fiber core and cladding is made of glass or silica. The fiber core and the layers of cladding are used to keep the light within the core and prevent it from leakage. Fiber buffer coating is created of plastic or acrylic and offers handling flexibility as well as physical protection for the fiber.

Fiber optics employ an optical phenomenon called total internal reflection. When light is introduced into the fiber from its end face, https://www.wefacebook.com/dir/site-8074.html it is kept inside the core without spilling out and losing its energy.

Then light is digitally modulated to show 1 and 0 just as a computer. As such, information can be carried from one location to another one, which could be from San Francisco all the way to New York.

What is a fiber optic connector and how do they work?

Now you understand how optical fibers operate. So what is the fiber optic connector? And what’s the purpose of a fiber optic telecommunication network?

Put it simple The fiber optic connector’s job is similar to that of an electric power source, it connects light from one section of optical fiber with another section of optical fiber.

Because optical fibers are tiny they require fiber optic connectors to be designed with extreme precision, and at a size of 0.1um, which equals one hundredth a human hair.

Fiber optic connectors are positioned to align two fibers from end to end to ensure that light is able to move from one fiber to another without bouncing off the interface , and thus losing its signal.

In addition fiber optic connectors, they provide cross connect flexibility for the telecommunication network. So a complicated computer network can be modularized and simple to manage.

Just like any other connectors used in electronic industry, the electric industry, or computer industry, many different kinds connected to fiber optic cables were created in the course of development of the fiber optic communications. Certain of them were extremely popular in the field but have now served their purposes and are becoming obsolete.

The most widely used fiber optic connectors that are used today include SC, ST, LC, FC, MTRJ, SMA as well as a few others that are less well-known. There are certain to be new connectors being developed as a result of the development of the industry.