HANSUN Fiber Optic Transmission Technology
Usually, a fiber optic communication system consists of three main components: optical transmitter, fiber optic cable and an optical receiver. The optical transmitter converts the electrical signal to the optical signal; the fiber optic cable carries the optical signal from the optical transmitter to the optical receiver, and the optical receiver reconverts the optical signal to electrical signal. The most commonly used optical transmitter is semiconductor devices like LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and laser diodes. Photodetector is the key part of an optical receiver. It converts light into electricity using photodetector effect. As for the fiber optic cable, there is too much to say. As the use and demand for speed and bandwidth, the development of optical cables is amazing. Now in the optical cable market, there are OS2 fiber, OM1 fiber, OM2 fiber, OM3 fiber, OM4 fiber and OM5 fiber cable for different optical applications. Optical fibers are used as a medium for telecommunication and networking because it is flexible and can be bundled as cables. It is especially advantageous for long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fiber with little attenuation compared to electrical copper cables. The figure below shows that all fiber optic transmission systems use modulated light to convey information from a transmitter to a companion receiver.
Advantages of Fiber Optic Transmission
Optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the developed world, because of its advantages over electrical transmission. Here are the main advantages of fiber optic transmission.
Extremely High Bandwidth: No other cable-based data transmission medium offers the bandwidth that fiber does. The volume of data that fiber optic cables transmit per unit time is far greater than copper cables.
Longer Distance: in fiber optic transmission, optical cables are capable of providing low power loss, which enables signals can be transmitted to a longer distance than copper cables.
Resistance to Electromagnetic Interference: in practical cable deployment, it’s inevitable to meet environments like power substations, heating, ventilating and other industrial sources of interference. However, fiber has a very low rate of bit error, as a result of fiber being so resistant to electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic transmission is virtually noise free.
Low Security Risk: the growth of the fiber optic communication market is mainly driven by increasing awareness about data security concerns and use of the alternative raw material. Data or signals are transmitted via light in fiber optic transmission. Therefore there is no way to detect the data being transmitted by “listening in” to the electromagnetic energy “leaking” through the cable, which ensures the absolute security of information.
Small Size: fiber optic cable has a very small diameter. For instance, the cable diameter of a single OM3 multimode fiber is about 2mm, which is smaller than that of coaxial copper cable. Small size saves more space in fiber optic transmission.
Light Weight: fiber optic cables are made of glass or plastic, and they are thinner than copper cables. These make them lighter and easy to install. Easy to Accommodate Increasing Bandwidth: with the use of fiber optic cable, new equipment can be added to existing cable infrastructure. Because optical cable can provide vastly expanded capacity over the originally laid cable. And WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) technology, including CWDM and DWDM, enables fiber cables the ability to accommodate more bandwidth.
