Optical fiber cable advantages

Underwater remote-sensing techniques using an optical fiber cable have several advantages. Useful data on the in situ size distribution, concentration, and algal color group of phytoplankton in the marine environment may be obtained. Measurements at high speed can be carried out because the towed pressure vessel can be streamlined by limiting it to the optical... 

Optical connectors ate used to terminate and interconnect fiber optic cables (see Fiber OPTICS). Transmission of information by light through optical fibers made of glass or plastic is less expensive in many cases than transmission of electric signals through wire. An advantage of fiber optic technology is that it is... 

Microbending Loss. As a result of their small diameters, optical fibers bend very readily. This feature is advantageous in that the transmission medium is very flexible and easily routed. However, when the spatial period of the bending becomes small (approx. 1 mm or less), some of the light rays normally guided by the fiber are lost through radiation. Such small period distortions may occur when a fiber is wound on a spool under tension or when it is placed in cable structure. The phenomenon is termed microbending (11), and... 

Semiconductor lasers have a tremendous potential for use in optical communication systems due to their high efficiency, small size, and direct modulation capability. Because of their small size, they become the ideal source for optical radiation to be utilized in an optical fiber transmission system. The reason for developing an optical communications system is that these systems can take advantage of the large bandwidth that optics has to offer. For example, in a conventional copper wire communication system, the bandwidth of the transmission channel, i.e., the coaxial cable, is limited to approximately 300 MHz. In a normal telephone conversation, fi equency components up to 3 kHz are required for the listener to understand the conversation. By multiplexing many telephone conversations on different carrier fi equencies, approximately 100,000 conversations can be sent through a single... 

Another advantage of optical fiber and fiber optic cable is the inherent flexibility in design options, allowing for the development of innovative products for specific applications. Since optical fiber is a man-made composite glass structure, it can be custom designed to meet optimal cost/performance targets... 

Today fiber-optic transmission systems offer several advantages over conventional copper wire and coaxial cable systems. Among these are increased bandwidth, smaller size, lower weight, lack of crosstalk, and a very low susceptibility to electromagnetic interference. It is to be expected that these advantages will open widespread application of fiber-optic transmission systems in the future. This seems to be supported by the fact that a great number of public and in-house trial systems are under test all over the world. 

Figure 3.40 shows the layout of a typical Raman analyzer that uses fiber optics for process application. In a Raman process system, light is filtered and delivered to the sample via excitation fiber. Raman-scattered light is collected by collection fibers in the fiber-optic probe, filtered, and sent to the spectrometer via return fiber-optical cables. A charge-coupled device (CCD) camera detects the signal and provides the Raman spectrum. To take advantage of low-noise CCD cameras and to minimize fluorescence interference, NIR diode lasers are used in process instruments. 

In typical fixed photocatalytic reactors, the photocatalyst can be coated or anchored on the reactor walls around the light source casing or attached to a solid matrix. Since Ti02 is not present in the water or air streams at any time, these reactors have the intrinsic advantage of not requiring a catalyst recovery operation. Relevant examples of this type of reactor are the coated fiber optic cable reactor and the multiple tube reactor (Peill and Hoffmann, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, Ray and Beenackers, 1998a). 

As the high flux of information density is one of the advantages of fiber-optic cables over other types of information carriers, fiber-optic communications have been providing a powerful means of data transmission with their extremely high bit rates. In the case of chemical sensors, several advantages of the fibers can additionally be exploited, namely such capabilities as remote senary miniaturization, electromagnetic immunity, and ia situ measurement can be employed (12Y... 

Fibers in fiber optic cables are primarily offered in one of three basic forms, each with its own advantages and limitations as described below. 

---