About Fiber Optics

Aside from the benefits, the key stimulants for the development of fiber optics technology have been lower prices and the efficiency of optical fiber communications. Scientists merged fiber technology with electrical conduction to create fiber optic sensors, which have been employed as sensors in companies and research facilities for many years. Various studies have demonstrated the extent to which fiber optic technology has influenced the lives of people who use it for a variety of reasons, even changing the entire world for the simple reason that people require transmissions of all kinds, such as hearing sound and light, in their day-to-day operations. Mass, wavelength, and intensity optic sensors are the most used types of sensors because they relate to the very human activities that take place nearly on daily basis.

Fiber optics cables are among the cheapest forms of transmitters considering that they are easily available and are used widely across the globe. The main problem that exists in the technology of optic fiber is routing between local exchange (LE) and access networks (AN). The AN has a ring structure as a result of an optical cable passing through a number of network units from where individual lines are connected mostly, optical fibers are used with the modern AN due to the decrypting effect that is very prone in optical connections. Fire optic technology is cheaper as compared to telecommunication patterns to 30-49% levels. For this reason, fiber optics has become a relevant factor in necessitating telecommunications. More invented methods of developing optical fiber further will increase the importance of optical fiber on telecommunications and save much more on cost. Telecommunications enabled through the optical fibers are more reliable and useful given that optical fiber signals are very fast as they compare to the speed of light in air. Various countries are adopting this kind of technological advancement in the field of communication.

Fiber optics can also be used in other fields apart from telecommunication, for example, robots, machines, computers and more. Fiber optics is used in very simple things also, for example, children toys and Christmas trees. The sole reason why fiber optics is used for telecommunications is because of its bandwidth and length, which are the key factors in telecommunications. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can pass through the optical fiber cable at any given period. Considering bandwidth as a pipe, optical fibers can transmit data equal to the Alaska pipeline, which is the biggest pipeline ever built.

Fiber has also gained popularity over the years due to its advantage over copper cables. Copper cables can only transmit data to a range of 100 meters or less, while optic fiber cables transmit even to an area of 2 kilometers. Optic cables are also very elastic compared to copper cables, and hence are able to stretch a lot of kilometers to a very long distance. Unlike most transmitters that are made of copper and that transmit electric current, optic fiber is made of glass and transmits pulses of energy more so light energy. Glass may sound very delicate and short lasting but in a real sense, glass optic fibers last longer than copper transmitters.

Optic fiber serves a significant role in the present world as it serves different telecommunication patterns, for example, mobile phones and telephones due to their long distance capability. The growth of the Internet all over the world has also been necessitated by optical fiber as it is able to transmit large amounts of data over long distances. This paper seeks to explain the various aspects of fiber optics and how they have been used in developing the continent, and to give detailed information on how these optic transmitters function. It also aims at understanding the history of fiber optics to date.

Key words: Fiber optics, telecommunication, popularity, transmitters, glass.

Fiber Optics

Introduction

With the evolving, human challenges needs and demands to achieve better communication and efficient service delivery. Diverse technologies have emerged to facilitate and help attain the desired steps. One major development is the fiber optic, which is widely used in the telecommunications, avionics, industrial control, networking, and medical sectors.

Fiber optics is the science of conveying data with the aid of a light and thinly grouped glass as medium (Kao, 2011). Based on the clear fact that light travels at a fast speed of approximately 300,000,000 m/s and is almost weightless, this renders the fiber optic technique efficient, reliable and light, thus a variety of applications in real life scenarios (Huygens & Thompson, 2010).

History of Fiber Optics

Communication is described as the transfer of information from one point to another. This has evolved and changed a great deal. Information is speech, images or data, and these need to be relayed through a channel.

Initial methods of communication had a basis in the carrier wave communication, which meant that a wave had to be involved in so as to move the data. This saw the adverse usage of the Amplitude Modulation (AM) and Frequency Modulation (FM) signals, mostly in radio and television broadcasting (Crisp & Elliot, 2005).

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell discovered the telephone, which used cables to transmit speech. This used the technique of a microphone that could convert audio into electric signals which could then be conveyed through the cables over land or via radio channels.

In 1880, Bell discovered the Photophone, which was a significant advancement in the optical field as it was able to transmit audio using light and parabolic reflectors. It paved the way for deeper research into the use of light as a data carrier, as an alternative to signals (Nelist, 1992).

The earliest inventions that can closely be linked to the current fiber optics is the origination of the Laser beam in 1960 by Theodore H. Mariman (Gould, 1997). This clearly illustrated that light had a greater information carrying capacity that the coaxial cables, radio, and microwaves).This is the bandwidth. With more research and usage of light, laser beams proved to be severely attenuated and led to great loss of information. The laser could not cope up with the demand for better communication and interaction.

In Vienna, doctors Reuss and Roth used glass rods to work on a body cavity and identify the problem that the cavity had on the body. They did this by illuminating it and studying the effect that light had on the cavity. This was back in 1888. 7 years later another scientist Henry Saint-Rene designed a series of bent glass rods to transmit light images from one channel to another in an attempt to come up with a television. In 1898, David Smith used glass rods to examine the dental formulae of a patient using the same system of curved glass rods.

John Baird in 1920 designed the use of images in a series of glass rods. He used arrays of glass to produce images in the television and later Hansell developed these works by doing the same for facsimiles. However, it emerged that these scientists were not able to transmit an adequate series and therefore the images that were produced were of very low quality as they were blurred and did not bring out the actual colors that were intended. In 1930, Heinrich Lamm transmitted an image through a series of optical transmissions making him the first scientist to undertake this task appropriately. The image was a lighting bulb filament with an intention to examine the inner parts of a human body, access how they are arranged and how they work. However, his dream of becoming a medical historian was shunned later after his effort to file a human analysis was rejected.

In 1951, Holger Moeller applied for a Danish patent that was to examine the processes that take place in a human body in which he proposed that glass blocks that were bent could work as well as optical fibers in transmitting light and data. His patent was however rejected as Heinrich Lamm had filed a similar patent which had also been rejected after three years, Abraham Van Heel and Hopkins presented yet another form of optic fibers to the British Journal Nature at separate times which presented imaging strategies. Heel, later on, presented a well explained optic system which was accepted into use and which triggered invention of the television.

In 1954 also, the laser was developed by Charles Townes at the University of Columbia which produced rays of heat similar to those produced by a microwave. The first neon-lit gas laser was invented in 1960 and tested in the same year. Another laser that used pink light crystals was also invented that was used to produce a strong pulse of light. In 1961, an optic fiber guide was published by Elias Snitzer which gave a theoretical framework of how special mode fibers would be used to carry large amounts of data with only one waveguide. Snitxer designed a set of glass fibers that were very thin but were able to transmit sufficient medical applications but for the case of light transmissions, a huge loss was experienced (Timbercon, 2015).

With more research and usage of light, Laser beams proved to be severely attenuated and led to great loss of information. The laser could not cope up with the demand for better communication and interaction.

In 1970, Kapron and Keck (at Corning Glass in the USA) devised the use of silica fiber which became the mother of the silica glass fiber used in the making of the current fiber optics. This technique significantly improved data reliability and minimalized attenuation. By 1985 the data losses related to attenuation had been reduced to below 0.2 dB/km (Marshak, 1997). The first complete fiber system was created in 1996 which was laid across the Pacific Ocean. It is known as the TPC-5 that used local optical fibers. This became the longest optic cable network in the world that had the ability to transfer data over very long distances across the world. This fiber guides light from a concentrated source which apart from issuing high light transmissions, it has also been used greatly in the field of medicine. Today different industries use optic fiber in most of their operations, for example, the medical industry, military, data storage and networking companies.

Background of the study

Ability to communicate and network both in the social, economic, political and industrial sector has been a key technical point in the advancement and growth of the telecommunication industry, where fiber optics plays a focal role in different technologies and modes of transmission have been used in the past to help bridge the gaps in these fields.

From the initial Bell Telephones by Alexander Graham Bell in the early 1880s, and the use of copper cables to transmit voice to the use of arrayed beams of light for imaging and televising, this mode proved insufficient as they could not cope up with the market demand, diversification and distribution of governance, and bid to facilitate cheap, easy, and efficient communication (Green, 1993).

Modes of connectivity such as copper wires have a tendency to suffer data loss, and bandwidth denial owing to both environmental and human contributed activities which can bring about electromagnetic and radio frequency existence thus rendering such means not efficient (Alwayn, 2004). Keeping in mind the data carrying capacity, copper as one of the middleware used widely before fiber optics is very bulky thus needs more duct space for installation in addition to the weight and costs. This is too expensive and unreliable.

Social networking, business endeavors and growth of computing and telecommunication industry have created a huge demand for the need to distribute data efficiently will minimal attenuation and improved reliability. All this seeks to make the world the “global village”, in that communication is fast and guaranteed without considering the physical or logical positioning of parties involved.

In the economic sector, the urge to diversify the manufacturing, processing, sales and distribution and to enhance management has generated a technology scrum that seeks to struggle and ensure the processes are successful. All these rely on better, efficient and reliable communication. Having a better mode of communication has seen these activities being more efficiently executed.

With the invention of the laser, this created great interest in the way people would communicate from different locations and hence fiber optics was discovered. The laser motivated scientists to study very hard about fiber optics and study their ability to light, communicate and transmit data from one place to another. The laser was first tested by first letting it into the air using the laser beam. Researchers also passed the laser through different types of wavelengths. Later on, glass made optic transmitters came in that would transmit rays of light from one place to another. However, there were a lot of losses in the optical fiber case which led to introduction of coaxial cables that were more reliable in terms of cost and speed (Hecht, 1999).

In 1989, fiber scientists concluded that material making fiber is the one that contributed to signal losses due to impurities in it. If these impurities were to be removed, optic fibers would be completely reliant. In 1970, they removed some impurities and this time, it saved 20$% less than what it has lost earlier. In 1972, they made a fiber optic out of highly refined material and this time it lost only 4% which showed that the optical transmission had become popular and useful in making transmissions.

In the current 21st Century the growth of the Ffber optics network, usage and accessibility have increased tremendously. As per Statista (2015), approximately 281 million fiber kilometers were demanded globally. This growth is greatly related to the ever fast growing the Internet and need for service deliveries with relation to online economic activities too (Azadeh, 2012).

The improved connectivity has seen expansion and growth of big companies as Seacom international, Naficon and Timbercon among other which are involved in intercontinental fiber linkages (Hui & O’Sullivan, 2009).

Research Questions/ Aims/Objectives

Research Questions

What is fiber optics?

Do signals really travel faster in fiber optics compared to other channels of transmission, for example, copper transmitters?

What is understood by structured cabling in the field of fiber optics and how do they influence one another?

What is the best way of communication? Wired communications or fiber optics communications?

What are some of the uses of optic fibers in the cabling system in the business world?

What is the advantage of using optical fiber in communications and transmissions and/or should intelligence agencies use fiber optics or copper transmissions?

Aims and Objectives of the study

The principal aim of this research is to investigate the nexus between fiber optics, improved networking, and communication, and get to learn how this is achieved on the basis of technologies used both at manufacturing and distribution levels. Other specific objectives include:

To determine the role that fiber optics plays in the transfer of data from one region to another.

To determine the relationship that exists between fiber optic transmitters and copper transmitters.

To determine the way in which the technology of fiber optics has improved the lives of people and how it has contributed to enhanced communications.

To establish the patterns that exist in the optical fiber systems in the world and how they are build

To identify the various types of optical fibers and how each of them contributes to their respective fields.

Significance of the Study

With the great scholarly work already done on fiber optic, this paper will help by furthering the examination of fiber optic technologies and usage. Another significance of this study will be to clearly illustrate the power of fiber optics in relation to the benefits it has to the economy as well communication.

This study will enable readers to identify the way in which optical fibers work and the reason as to why governments and scientists have invested a lot of their time and money into developing optical fiber technology. This will be done by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using fiber optics over other channels of transmission. For example, the United States in their last budget set aside 325 billion US Dollars to be used in connecting different states to the national fiber optics grid. They have similarly invested a lot in research studies about optical fibers and from where the technology of fiber optics stands, it seems it will have made a great impact in the world in a few years to come.

This study, therefore, aims to study the various environments where fiber optics have worked and provided intended results, and review on the importance that it has had for the years it has been in existence. The fiber optics structure is also another key area of study in this proposal.

Literature Review

Communication and networking are at the core of our day to day living. The rapid decentralization of resources both human and non-human has also contributed greatly to the increasing demand for better communication, and this affects both industrial, transport and medical sectors to a great extent.

With the growth and spread of the fiber optic networks, internet speeds and information transmissions have improved and reliability guaranteed. Economic sectors as banks insurance companies have seen improvements in transaction execution, while companies can still have expatriates working offsite but delivering on time. All this is possible owing to the many different benefits that the fiber optic has.

Optical fibers provide an excess approach on telecommunications and allow multiple operations to happen at any given time. Many users are able to communicate from various locations by partitioning the long bandwidth that fiber optics offers. A multiple fiber optic setup is required whenever users are not at the same place as the fiber needs to extend to the various parts not as a straight line but as shorter but many bandwidths. There are three major optical schemes within the optical framework and that are the major divisions of optical fibers all over the world. These are; Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Wavelength Division Multiple Access (WDMA) and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). All these are differentiated by the mode of transmission and the bandwidth that each one of them uses.

In a short time, optical fibers have been able to achieve what copper transmissions have been able to achieve what other transmission mechanisms have tried to achieve for many centuries. They involve massive data streaming that originates from various channels to individual platforms. The TDMA makes use of the bandwidth perspective as long as the transfer of information is concerned, since its servers contain high transmission speeds at all times. To increase even further, the TDMA uses high capacity links tat make sure that all information transmitted is compiled as one database in the main unit. The WDMA, on the other hand, increase the width of the bandwidth using various transmission windows that are not only glass enabled transmitters but also high-speed information interpreters.

The CDMA has also been adopted in the transfer of high-profile information that contains crucial data at any time. It was developed to deal with LAN communications that are enhanced by the Internet in the world environment. This one provides high volumes of information without employing the high-speed mechanism. Data here is processed at relatively slow speeds, but it also gives intended results like volume data analysis and massive responses at a time. For a user to communicate with another user, they employ the idea of codes which they implant in the imprint on the database. The receiver can then decode the information at their own desired sped and volume (Desthieux, 2010).

Different articles and books have been written to explain the way in which optic fibers work and how they have been used in various originations and industries citing the advantages that it has portrayed on communications.

An Overview

Despite the prevalent usage of the fiber optic in the communication and networking platforms, it has taken a great step in being used more and more in industrial data relaying systems (Agrawal, 2008).Usage in these fields has seen rapid improvements in high data rate, noise reduction, and electrical isolations.

With the need to diversify and decentralize management, institutions can extend RS-232, RS-422/485, and local networks by using fiber optic as the backbone as well as point to point linkage between networks and helps maintain the high data rates with near zero attenuations and electrical attenuation (Kumar & Deen, 2014).

Fiber optics has offered the communication world a mean of carrying data using light with very minimal losses, reducing installation costs and ensuring energy reliance both at operable and maintenance levels (Alwayn, 2004).This is so one of the most reliable technologies that will seek to evolve this field.

The growth of the fiber optic technology is yet to reach its climax, as with the ever increasing demand for Internet and the indulgence into the new fields of big data management, internet of things, and the over reliance on online marketing, the implementation and use of fiber technologies will explode to help accommodate the needs. This is inevitable (DeCusatis & Sher, 2006).

Impact on Economy and Society

The improved network bandwidth has greatly revolutionized and improved the social and economic interaction platforms. The emergence of such platforms has vitalized markets and improved social interaction, thus fostering better and peaceful co-existences and relations. The information count exchanged over such totals to billions in a day, and this has helped in the development of the business to business (B2B) relations to suppliers.

With the better Internet, owing to fiber, great steps have been achieved in the creation of global employment. This, for instance, can be attested by companies such as Uber, Amazon, Baidu and Freelancer, which rely on the online existence and reliable internet connection. This can only be achieved with good internet connectivity backbones. Think of fiber here as an employer. Statistically, over 250,000 people were employed by Amazon in 2015.

Economic niches are now accessible globally, as management can now be decentralized to different locations and conducted over real-time systems. Company branches can be run by persons not on the ground but offsite. This means that travel costs are cut down.

With a point to point communications between Industrial data elements, manufacturing processes can be regulated, controlled, and optimized remotely, as well as disasters, visible before incident, without failures owing to reduced attenuation and reliability offered by fiber optics.

With the good Internet, there is improved online advertisement and transactions. This builds the linkage all the way from marketing to actual transactions over the web or p2p networks as automated teller machines which are closely networked and tightly coupled using fiber optics.

Socially we are now all connected and able to interact. This builds a complex scenario where it can have a positive or negative impact. The good speeds over Internet, offered by fiber optic, can span the scope of friendships as well as open a platform for malicious practices that are unsocial.

On other cases, cyber terrorism and crimes have been on the increase as the existence of better networks has opened avenues for hackers and crackers to access resources easily. This is a potential threat to both the social and economic sectors. In 2002, there was the California Payroll attack that targeted the state government databases, and this saw the exposure of social security details and salaries of over 265000 employees leaked (Timbercon, 2015).

Developing Trends and Innovations

According to Britannica (2015), the use of fiber optics in endoscopy, which is the use of specialized fiber tubes called fiberscopes to conduct medical research, analysis, diagnosis and viewing of internal organs has been growing to recommendable levels. With this, health monitoring can be advanced thus ensuring efficient treatment for terminal and less diagnosable diseases. This technology is also being used in examining the internals of manufactured products to ensure proper building blocks as well as standards.

Kuzyk (2006) clearly brings out the uses of the fiber optics in the aviation sector. This owes to the fact that fiber optics is light weight and not bulky thus paving the way for their use in aerocrafts to facilitate communication. More so the avionics sector, which is the electronic devices in aviation, the devices are mostly using fiber optics as it has less attenuation and less noise, and, owing to the good bandwidth, reliability is guaranteed. This ensures that the devices never fail. This is very vital in airplanes and space crafts.

Fiber optics is critical to big data management locations as they are hazard free, has no electricity thus there are no risks of electrical fires as a result of use. This helps guarantee against fires. Also, the good bandwidths ensure data availability at both backs up, writing and reading stages thus facilitating data accessibility and ensuring data persistence.

Advantages of Fiber Optics

Fiber is less expensive than copper wires. Over longer distances, the costs incurred by fiber are low since the carrying capacity is higher thus a thinner fiber is required, unlike copper where the distance and bandwidth are not proportional thus rendering costs to be high.

Fiber has a high information carrying capacity. Because light beams have a higher data carrying capacity, this is what is referred to as the bandwidth. Also, fibers are thinner compared to copper thus so many of them can be bundled into one cable with the same diameter as copper wire.

There is reduced attenuation and signal loss. The first aspect of this is that the light signals never interfere with each other in the same fiber as they are propagated at different angles. This is a big problem in radio and microwave techniques. More so, electrical modes of communication, radio, and microwave are greatly affected by electromagnetic related attributes as well as any residual currents which are not the case in fiber optics. This guarantees data reliability, accuracy, and efficiency.

The fiber cables are less bulky and thin, almost the size of a single strand of hair. This allows users to control the weight, size, and space to use it, unlike copper which is very bulky in this case.

There are no electrical relations between the cables and electric current. This feature makes fiber optics a very safe technology to use as it can never have any shocks or sparks thus safe to handle and fire free.

Data security is guaranteed as the fibers never emit RF signals thus not possible to step into the data zone and tap info.

Technical Background

Data transmission is based on four core pillars that revolve around data availability, reliability, confidentiality, and accessibility. The Technical background herein will seek to help illustrate how fiber optic can achieve this at the structural level.

An optic fiber has four main building blocks namely: An Optical transmitter, an Optical fiber which is the cable, the Connectors, and the Optical receiver. (See figure 1)

Transmitter

The optical transmitter converts the electrical signal into optical signals. The components here are always light sources such as Light Emitting Diodes (LED), Light Amplification by Emission of Radiation (Laser) or Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL). The light from these sources is what will propagate the signal that has been converted to optical. Most fiber-optic cables use light that is within the infrared wavelength.

Optical Fiber Cable

This is the middleware of the fiber. It is the channel through which the data is transmitted and is what determines over 85% of the operability of the fiber optic. The principles controlling the functionalities at this level are based on two physics concepts: Total Internal Reflection and Refraction.

The functionalities of this section are based on three layers. The core is made of silica glass. This is the transmitting zone of the fiber. The Cladding is either glass or plastic with a lower refractive index as compared to the core. The Coating is the outer protective cover of the fiber cable. (See figure 2)

The functionality of the core is based on the concept of critical angles, and this is that light moving through the core is totally internally reflected at the core–cladding boundary as long as the critical angle between the boundary and the light is less than the critical angle.

The critical angle is the incident angle beyond which light from a dense medium to a less dense medium is no longer refracted but undergoes total reflection.

During the whole processes, involving the light and the reflections and refractions, some rays are not confined in the core; these are the lost rays. Those form the guided rays, and hence are the once used to transmit the data herein.

Based on the number of guided rays, the fiber optic is either single mode – if can handle only one guided ray or multimode if it is used and has the capacity for more than one guided rays.

Types of fiber

A multi-mode step-index fiber is the least common type of fiber and is easy to splice/join as it has a relatively bigger diameter compared to other fiber types. It is inexpensive to manufacture. The speeds are quite low thus not often used.

A multi-mode graded-index fiber is the most common fiber optic cable. The refractive index of the core and the cladding changes gradually with length. This decreases the dispersions and tends to make the reflections uniform. Have higher bandwidth as compared to step-index fiber.

Single-mode fiber is constructed with the smallest diameter and has the highest performance compared to the other types.

To connect the optic fiber to the transmitter and receiver you need to use the below technologies as the process is quite tactical.

Fusion Splice technology can be used and it involves welding the transmitter or fiber to another using electrical arc or fusion splicer. This method is faster with fewer insertion losses involved. Connectors are used to makes the fiber robust and flexible. The fibers are joined using removable sheathed connectors using epoxy. Other types of connectors are shown in figure 3.

Receiver

At this point, there is a photodiode which is used to convert the optical signals into electrical signals which can then be understood by the recipient device. The receiver characteristics are what greatly determine the efficiency of the channel from the data reception point. From this point, it is able to identify the channel efficiency as well. (See figure 4)

Technical Discussion

Fiber optics might seem very reliable compared to all other networking and communication middleware, but faces some challenges during the operability stages, though this is minimized by the advantages discussed earlier. This makes it one of the best reliable solutions at hand.

During transmission, the light herein is affected by three main issues: attenuation, polarization, and dispersion.

Attenuation

As the light transmits the data, some light is absorbed by the glass fiber; this situation is what is known as attenuation. The rate of absorption of the light is dependent on the wavelength of the light being used as well as the characteristics of the glass being used. The main material used for making the glass is silicon dioxide.

The best-known solution known to help minimize attenuation is called doping. This is the addition of other items with different characteristics to the silicon dioxide. For this case, germanium dioxide is used. This is known as the dopant. Doping alters the optical functionality of the fiberglass used. Use of unknown materials might render your fiber worthless.

The effect due to absorption of small variations of light is known as Rayleig