Fiber Optic History

Our current age of technology is the result of many brilliant inventions and discovers, but it is our ability to transmit information and the media we use to do it, it that is perhaps most responsible for its evolution. Progressing from the copper wire of a century ago to today’s fiber optic cable, our increasing ability to transmit more quickly and over longer distances has expanded the boundaries of our technological development in all areas.

Toady’s low-loss glass fiber optic cables offer almost unlimited bandwidth and unique advantages over all previous developed transmission media. The basic point-to-point fiber optic transmission system consists of three basic elements: the fiber optic cable and the optical receiver and the fiber optic cable.

Optical communications date back two centuries to the opical telegraph that French engineer Claude Chappe invented the 1790s. His system was a series of semaphores mounted on towers, where human’s operators relay messages from one tower to the other. It beat hand carried messages hands down, but by the mid-19th century was replaced by the electric telegraph, leaving a scattering of “Telegraph Hills” as it almost visible legacy.

In the intervening years a new technology slowly took r

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However, the first person known to have demonstrated image transmission through a bundle of optical fibers was Heinrich lamm, than a medical student in transmitting the images of light bulb filament through a short bundle.

Optical fibers went a step further. With all of these possible applications of fiber optics, it will become one of the most active and important technologies for this decade and many to come.

Telecommunications is not the only application of fiber optics.

Mean while telecommunications engineers were seeking more transmission bandwidth. Shopping at home, and television on demand will replace the current cable television systems of today. Optical fiber is also being used for security, and measurement of a system like the changing temperature and wind velocity on a bridge in real time. They are essentially transparent rods of glass or plastic stretched so they are long and flexible. Radio and microwave frequencies were in heavy use, so they looked to higher frequencies to carry loads they expected to continue increasing with the growth of television and telephone traffic. In the mid 1840s, Swiss physicist Daniel Collodon and French physicist Jacques Babinet showed that light could be guided along jet of water for fountain display. With its high-speed data transfer rates, which can out, perform copper wire, optical fiber will certainly become the new standard for transmitting data. As the manufacturing processes improve, the newer, high-grade optic fibers will begin to replace the current copper cable networks. This is for the simple reason that light does not have problems with electromagnetic interference that such a problem for copper wires. To help cut down the problem with cable, all the cable are covered with cladding to help prevent power loss and to protect the cable.

Fiber-optic technology is constantly improving and one of the biggest hurdles is trying to lower the attenuation of the cable.

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